


I don't want you (to smile to anybody)

by Mizzy



Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), Push (2009), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crack, Crossover, M/M, Pining, Rating: NC17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-06 08:35:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark doesn’t do commitment. So Steve finds it weird – but not impossible – to deal with Tony suddenly bringing home dates that look like him.</p><p>Until one of Tony’s one-night-stands, who could be a <i>double</i> for Steve, turns out to be not quite as disposable as the rest of Tony’s conquests – and Steve’s repressed crush on Tony starts to become problematic...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't want you (to smile to anybody)

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:**  
>  PWP. Pining with porn.  
> I am happy to add any other warnings that people might think appropriate.
> 
>  **Thank you:** to immoral-crow for being the best cheerleader and beta ever, ever, _ever_. Any mistakes that remain are my own.  
>  Also thank you to kiyala who reassured me I wasn't, in fact, losing my mind. (My sanity is still under question.)
> 
> This fic is a vague crossover with _Push (2009)_ which does not require knowledge of the Push universe. It also has a tiny RPF moment via a chat show, and has a couple of appearances from other characters Chris Evans has played. It also has an easter-egg reference to a _Fantastic Four_ issue which made my brain cry in either hysterics or terror. Even now, I’m not sure which. Holler if you catch it.
> 
> EDIT: GUYS I'M SERIOUS ABOUT THAT TAG AT THE END OF THE TAGS. THIS IS CRACK. CRACK. If you're looking for serious fic, oh my gosh what are you doing here. Also I never got to write the companion piece that proves Nick is actually being lazy with romance b/c I'm a terrible writer who was still majorly learning (I mean I'm still learning but this was written in a real learning curve year for me and this fic was way at the bottom of that curve) but assume Nick doesn't love Tony he just wants his life sorted out easily without much effort. IDK IDK. ANYWAY. CRACK. IT'S ALL CRACK. DON'T LOOK AT ME.

** I don't want you (to smile to anybody) **

♥ Poster made by [Lian//Steve-Tony(Tumblr)](http://steve-tony.tumblr.com). ♥

 

 

 

It makes sense for all the active Avengers to live together. The threats to Earth tend to focus down near where the mansion Tony lets them have—whether that just means Manhattan is the weak point of the planet, or their foes are drawn to the Avengers, or Tony somehow managed to build in some sort of universe-nexus-weakness into the walls, no one knows.

It's convenient to have them all amassed in one place, and say whatever you want about their crazy chemical makeup or timebomb tendencies, they are a (weird, constructed, dysfunctional) family at the end of the day.

A family who regularly (willingly!) wear spandex but balance out that crazy by saving the world a lot.

Like any family, there are only certain times they're all in the same room together. Mandatory SHIELD briefings. Occasional press conferences (to take the super out of human, people, _make yourself approachable,_ yes, Stark, I'm _talking to you too._ ) Games night. Apocalypse—preventing battles.

But most regularly, (importantly) breakfast.

No one quite knows why or when it started (JARVIS knows, but it is more fun to argue and bicker about a date than get a computer to ruin the fun by _telling_ them) but breakfast soon becomes just their _thing._ It is the only time of day they have peace before the rest of the world starts to interfere. It keeps them bonding as a team. It keeps Bruce fed and therefore less angry than Bruce—with—low—blood—sugar.

It is just their thing. The Avengers together with various breakfast foods.

Plus whoever Tony brings home with him the night before.

* * *

So, no one wants to complain really. The house is technically Tony's and he pays for all their food, so having an extra guest at breakfast is nothing to be churlish about.

Steve's met some interesting men and women over the last five years (that particular concept only took a couple of days for Steve to wrap his mind around—people were people at the end of the day, and freedom was what Steve liked most to fight for). Tony never chooses anyone boring or dull (unless it's a Tuesday), and Steve's met politicians and writers and artists and actors, cheerleaders and pilots and athletes and engineers. He knows all their names, even when—he suspects—Tony doesn't.

It's a good routine. Breakfast with good company—and sometimes with someone with amazing legs parading around in one of Tony's shirts, and then off to save the day or do whatever else their publicist wants them to do. (SHIELD hired them all publicists. Apparently they needed to appear human. It salved people's rage when they threw Hulk into another public building or a favorite bar or similar.)

Anyway. Steve's okay with the rhythm of their life, right up until Lucas. And then Nick. But mostly, it started with Lucas.

* * *

The morning that kicks off Nick—gate is like any other. Steve wakes up at 7am, after going to bed at 3am. Goes to the kitchen. Grabs his juice. Sits at the table in the seat with the best view of the window, so he can see danger happening in the city before anyone else. It also has a good view of the corner that Clint likes to sit in.

The ceiling corner, that is. It's easy to see why they call him the Hawk.

Except, this morning is not like the others. Steve's never been the most alert in the morning unless the word _danger_ is being thrown around, so it takes him a while when he's standing in front of the fridge to notice that his juice isn't there.

He blinks, swipes his hand through the space it should be, and blinks some more.

He turns slowly to the table, where Natasha is already dissecting an egg—white omelette like she's performing an autopsy, and Bruce is eating his plain bowl of cereal (so he doesn't get too excited) and Clint is already up in the corner with his usual bacon sandwich, and there's a guy sitting in what's normally Tony's chair drinking a glass of juice.

Oh. Steve's juice. That's where it is.

Steve stares at the fridge, like it might make more juice appear (it isn't an unlikely occurrence in the Avengers mansion—Tony's always leaving new appliances around the place, some which stay, some which disappear, and some which blow up and leave scorch marks) and when it doesn't, he pokes dubiously at the many cartons sitting in the shelves.

"Um," Steve says, "which one of these is milk?"

In his days, milk cartons did exist, but they didn't have spouts and they didn't have children's faces on and they didn't come in so many varieties.

"Milk," Tony's voice floats in over the top of the fridge, "someone's living dangerously."

"That," Steve says, "would be whoever drank my juice."

"Oh," says the guy in Tony's chair, "sorry! This is your juice? I'm drinking _Captain America's juice._ Oh my gosh, I feel so hardcore."

Tony's shrugging in apology, and Steve frowns at him, and Tony takes the fridge door from Steve's clenching, juice—deprived hands. "This one," Tony says, handing Steve a brown carton with a screw—lid. Steve takes it, and stares at it dumbly. "Guys, I thought Fury handed around the memo that it was _Bruce_ we had to keep from low—blood—sugar."

"You read one of Fury's memos?" Steve questions, still staring at the carton. It has a picture of a cow on it. He's going to be drinking a cow? Wait, no. Cows gave out milk. But the cow on this carton has been illustrated as if the maid is squeezing chocolate from its udder.

Full big blocks of chocolate.

"JARVIS reads them to me," Tony says, reaching around Steve and pulling out a carton of fruit salad that he squints at, throws at the table, and ignores in favor of the eggs and bacon still on the stove.

"Sir," JARVIS says in long—suffering tones, "your cholesterol levels are above moderate range."

"Which," Tony says, piling food on a plate, "is why I burned off a ton of extra calories last night." He takes his food over to the table, and sits in Steve's usual seat, which is just about typical of him. "Didn't I, Lucas?"

The new guy at the table flushes oddly, and says, squinting around as if JARVIS lives in the air, "Oh, oh. Yes, Mr. JARVIS, sir."

"You always bring the smartest people home," Natasha says to Tony demurely, rolling her eyes. Steve manoeuvres himself awkwardly into the seat by Lucas, reaching for one of the glasses in the centre of the table and pouring the milk into the glass as best as he can. He squints sourly at his empty juice bottle, and then squints at the liquid going into his glass.

It's brown. "Tony," Steve says, "your milk is _brown._ "

"I keep the smartest people at home too," Tony says. "It's chocolate, big guy."

"Captain America's not a morning person, then," Lucas says. "Sorry about your juice. I didn't know."

Steve has no clue what Lucas is blathering on about, so he just sniffs at the brown milk, then chugs it down because his stomach is grumbling and then—

—then he wakes up and realizes that Lucas, Tony's one night stand, is disturbingly similar in appearance to _him._

* * *

See, the thing about Steve is that he is not a morning person. He didn't even get the proper army training to become a morning person, being injected with the super serum before enough weeks had passed for him to get used to it. The super serum made his digestive system pretty super too, except it needs more food to function than scrawny Steve of the past had ever needed, and therefore, in the mornings, Steve's brain just disengages until it gets some form of sugar into it.

Usually it's his juice.

Today it's the chocolate milk. (Which yes, Steve had known of its existence, and he had tried some before—it just doesn't belong at breakfast when it _isn't his juice._ )

Now that the world is working properly again (apart from the fact where Tony's usual one—night stand left—over is _pretty identical to him_ ) Steve can readjust and see where he was missing several key points.

Like the fact that Lucas is broad—shouldered, but not as broad as Steve is. And Lucas's shock of blond hair is clearly from a bottle. But otherwise, yeah. There are a lot of disturbing physical similarities which Steve feels really weird about.

Steve tries not to squint as he looks at him.

Tony's hand is leaning down on Lucas's thigh, intimate and close. There is a matching grin on the corners of their mouths, and Lucas has the beard—burn of honor that matches the beard—burn all of Tony's one night stands wear.

"I'm awake now," Steve says, scratching his head. He smiles blankly at Lucas. "Hi there, morning. Sorry. I'm not a morning fellow."

"Understatement," Natasha says. "I thought you were a zombie for a minute there."

"Ahah," Clint says from his corner, " _Budapest._ "

"Wait, you guys fought actual zombies?" Bruce asks, suddenly interested. Of course. Because zombies imply science. Steve has (reluctantly) seen _all_ of the zombie films, and it is always science that causes fictional zombies.

Although in their line of work, it might be magic.

Or an alien virus.

Or all three.

"The actual zombies were Prague," Natasha says.

"Then what the hell were we fighting in Budapest?"

"A lot of displeased grandmothers. European grandparents, Clint, they're crazy."

"You're telling _me._ "

"It's fine," Lucas says to Steve, gamely ignoring the insane conversation. "Hey, is Thor here too? I'm a big fan."

"He's busy ruling Asgard," Steve says, "speaking of daily activities, what's your job?"

"You don't have to vet all of my dates," Tony says.

"I'm an actor. I was a skateboarder, but." Lucas shrugs. "I met Tony at a beach party in Soho."

Steve has a brief picture of Lucas in his head. Shirtless. Bright orange swimming trunks. He swallows, and reaches for his chocolate milk awkwardly. Tony, in his evening suit—Tony does not do any suit which wasn't iron or evening and _especially_ not _bathing_ —casually leaning on Lucas, doing that laughing thing he does to pull his conquests, bright and shiny and an irresistible lure.

That's not an image he wants in his head.

Shit.

No. That's not an image he wants in his head either.

Steve shakes it all away.

"Pepper vets them before, you vet them after," Tony continues to complain, "it's like a vetting sandwich."

"It's not a sandwich _I_ would turn down," Clint says. "Just saying."

"Now I really want a sandwich," Bruce sighs.

"I can stab you," Natasha informs him.

"Carbs are the devil," Bruce sighs, and pushes his empty cereal bowl away mournfully.

" _Can_ lack of food make him angry?" Lucas asks, eyes wide, turning to Steve for the answer.

"Uh," Steve says, "despite Tony's best wishes we haven't actually tried."

"It would be for _science,_ " Tony says.

"Uh-uh, you are banned from that phrase," Natasha says, tapping her knife meaningfully against the table in her _remember what I can do to you without even using this_ way. "That phrase landed us with a lifetime ban to Japan and I love sushi."

"Relax," Tony says, "I refitted my mark 6 suit as a Gundam Wing. They think I'm flying in from an anime convention. I can pick you up genuine sushi any time, just ask."

"It also ended up in an extra day being added to the year," Natasha adds, "in _May._ "

"Everyone likes May," Tony says. "More May is better for everyone."

"And made the West Wing of the mansion disappear," Clint adds, scaling down the wall for more bacon.

"It comes back," Tony says, "on alternate Wednesdays."

"Um," says Lucas, "this isn't the West Wing is it?"

"It's Monday," Steve tells him. "But see the big expanse of green through the window?" Lucas nods. "That's where it is. When it is there."

"Oh," Lucas says, "so for next time I'm here, stay off the lawn."

"Exactly," Steve says, and feels sad for bad actor Lucas, with his wide shoulders and baby blue eyes. Because one thing is for sure—Tony doesn't repeat his dates.

And he's unlucky to be around when Tony does let Lucas down.

Steve hates seeing it. He sees it way too much.

Steve's the last to leave the breakfast table (always, because he's the only one who can figure out how to fit all their dishes into the dishwasher without getting angry) and when he wanders back out into the hall, he's treated to a view of Lucas, head tilted, Tony's tongue down his throat, Tony's hands cupping his ass. Steve freezes by the door, feeling a slow curl of shame for intruding.

Lucas is shamelessly moaning into Tony's mouth. Steve rolls his eyes. Tony especially hates the clingy, desperate ones. Lucas is toast, before he even knows it.

"So," Lucas purrs, clinging onto Tony's neck, stroking Tony's beard with the pad of his thumb, "when can I see you again?"

"Pretty sure TMZ will have pics of me tonight," Tony tells him. "Maybe then."

Lucas detaches himself slowly. Steve doesn't have to see the hurt in Lucas's eyes. He's seen this routine plenty. Tony's nothing if not predictable in these matters.

"Happy will take you anywhere you need to go," Tony says, before turning to go off towards his lab, whistling loudly, hands in his pockets. Steve spends a moment feeling sorry for Lucas, but he can't ignore the fact he feels oddly relieved that the routine's the same here, at least.

Apart from the fact that Steve feels like he wants to claw his way out of his own skin.

It's bizarre.

He's never identified at _all_ with the Red Skull until now.

Steve goes for a long, long run around the grounds, stubbornly making sure to track dirt across the immaculate grass where the West Wing of the Avengers Mansion sometimes is, and when he gets back in, he's feeling a lot better.

Of _course_ Tony's bound to pick up a date every now and again that looks like Steve. Blond hair, blue eyes, muscles—it's not like Steve is the most unique snowflake in the world. It's just a glitch.

That's all.

* * *

Except not.

Steve wakes up earlier the next day, just so he can snag his juice, and remembers why he doesn't come down until Clint has finished cooking his and Natasha's breakfast (no one knows why Natasha doesn't cook her own eggs, but they're too scared of her to ask. Sometimes she grins and that fills in more than enough of the blanks.)

He doesn't normally come down earlier because Clint is a scary—ass freak show when he cooks.

It's like the concept of a low cooking heat has never occurred to the Hawk at _all._ Clint must have learned to cook on the giant, blazing corpses of his victims, or something, because there's no other way to explain why his pan catches on fire every single morning.

Steve hugs the wall, sitting firmly in his favorite seat, and drinks his juice as he watches the flames. It is pretty awesome juice. They didn't have juice like this in the 40s. Sometimes the 21st Century has its good parts.

He makes a mental list:

* Juice.  
* Spouts on juice cartons.  
* Low heat settings on gas rings for when sane people cook.  
* The way his best friends are an amazing archer and an alien and an assassin and a crazy rage monster—oh, and then there's Bruce, too.

And then Steve laughs at his own joke. Tony's the crazy rage monster. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Steve's still semi—chuckling into his juice when Tony slides into the chair next to him

"What's so funny?" Tony asks, swiping at Steve's juice. Steve bats his hands away.

"Your _face,_ " Steve tells him. Clint, scraping bacon into his bread, starts to howl with laughter.

"No points for who taught you that one," Tony says.

Natasha clinks down next to Tony, precise, and starts shaking ketchup over her eggs. Now her breakfast looks like it's bleeding. Steve wrinkles his nose. "Where's your plus one, Stark?" she asks. "Steve might wake up when he has someone to interrogate."

"I don't interrogate," Steve says. "I vet. Like you date _puppies._ Get it? Vet? _Veterinarian_?"

"And you _are_ a veteran," Tony says, "a hilarious, adorable veteran who isn't quite awake yet, yeah?"

"I'm a vet who vets. So if I became an animal vet too—" Steve squints.

"If you make an Inception joke, I am killing you," Tony says, "it is way too early for Inception jokes."

"It's never the wrong time for Inception jokes," Bruce says. "Also: morning."

That's how Bruce says good morning all the time. Tagging it on the end like he's almost forgotten. Steve smiles at him blearily, and then his smile becomes a little fixed.

Because there's a guy behind Bruce, leaning against the doorway, wearing something which looks a lot like the shirt Tony was wearing yesterday and a pair of what looks like Steve's own sweat pants.

And fitting into them better, but Steve's not going to think about that.

This guy—his name is Ryan, Steve finds out later, and Ryan sells cellphones for a living—is polite and courteous and does not steal Steve's juice but does steal some of Steve's equilibrium and self—respect when he ends up making out with Tony halfway through breakfast against the fridge door.

Steve, in an incident which appals him for the rest of the day, gets turned on so fast that he's dizzy with it. Shit. Erections when other people are around are always as awkward as hell, and Steve's wearing a pair of sweat pants, just like Ryan, and by goodness sweat pants are _not_ the best clothing to hide erections.

Steve has to swallow down the strangled sound of annoyance he wants to make, because then Natasha will notice something is wrong and she'll deduce him by the way he'll make some rubbish casual remark and Steve will _never live it down._ Because who gets turned on at the _breakfast table._

At least his Captain America suit holds him in pretty damn well those few times Tony's done something super heroic and, well, Steve's head has always been turned by epic deeds for the greater good. Sweat pants are _the worst thing ever._

In the end, as Tony's thumbs casually cling into the visible long curves of Ryan's thigh muscles, Steve thinks of a human caterpillar compromised of Nick Fury, Agent Hill and Loki. It works—but Steve is really, _really_ going to have to refrain from clicking on the links that Clint e-mails him, because that image kind of makes him feel a little queasy as well.

Steve drinks his juice miserably, trying not to stare as Ryan kisses Tony back and somehow _doesn't_ end up with an embarrassingly public hard-on—and he probably stares more as a result of trying not to. In the vain hope of escaping with a _little_ amount of decency, Steve makes an early excuse to leave.

Tony's allowed to like all types of people. It doesn't mean he's picking up people that look like Steve _deliberately_.

Steve's just got to get over himself. That's all.

And then Nick happens.

* * *

There's a club they all go to maybe once a month to hang out and let their hair down (an expression Steve only ever really understood the first time they went with Thor, and Thor does terrible things to the dancefloor, especially the first time when he misunderstood what Clint meant by 'throwing shapes') and Steve doesn't mind it as much as he thought he might—even though the so—called music is way too loud—because he isn't betraying Peggy by going.

Because 21st Century dancing isn't dancing at all.

Mostly it's jumping. And swaying. Two things that Steve can always do pretty well.

He gets bored of it after a while. Mostly he finds a quiet corner to hang out with Bruce, but Betty's down for the weekend on a conference and they've already disappeared. Clint's somewhere up right at the _top_ of one of the dancing poles, and Natasha's caught up in a drinking game with some idiots who haven't figured out yet that she's Russian, plenty of vodka is _not_ going to even slightly affect her.

Tony's nowhere around. Curious, Steve starts to wind through the heaving crowd, looking for him. Normally they stay in the VIP area, and actually _bond_ , which Steve knows is the reasoning Tony uses when he sends the receipt to Pepper, telling her to record the night as a tax—deductible item. But sometimes they scatter, and those are the nights that Steve feels lost.

One time, he got so bored that he found a hen party who had brought along the bride's great—grandmother, and they chatted about _The Midnight Racer_ because Steve's never found anyone else to dork out about it with, and then unfortunately the woman died part way through their chat (natural causes!) and everyone blamed Steve for boring her to death.

Which. Steve took to heart for a day until Clint smacked him around the head and told him bad _knock knock_ jokes until Steve quit moping around.

There are no grandmothers out on the dancefloor tonight. There's no point going to get drunk. So Steve explores around the place.

There are three other floors as well as the VIP floor. Each floor seems to have a different music style, all of which are one thing: too loud. So when he finds a set of doors he's never seen before, he pushes through, hoping to find a quiet room.

The room he finds himself is, admittedly, pretty damn quiet. And dark. And filled with a lot of naked people doing questionable things. Steve's half backing out already when he's sees Tony, and because Steve's brain has been doing rotations since seeing Tony kissing Ryan against the fridge that morning, he freezes still and stares.

Steve's never seen Tony like this—eyes shut, head tilted back against the wall, hips thrusting slowly into the blond head nestled in at his crotch. It takes Steve the longest moment to realize that the guy between Tony's legs is shirtless, and performing some sort of oral sex act on Tony's—

Tony's eyes open, and his gaze locks almost instantly with Steve. But instead of freaking out or any other similar such reaction, Tony just stares. And smirks. Like he's proud of what's happening. Like it's nothing to be ashamed of.

"Sorry," Steve mumbles, staggering backwards, "sorry."

He flees, the door swinging shut behind him, and Steve stumbles through the dancers and heads to the door. He just about hears Clint calling after him, asking him if he's okay, but all Steve knows is that he has to get outside, he has to.

The cold of the alleyway outside hits Steve's face hard, like a slap. Steve settles against the brick wall of the club, breathing hard, feeling dizzy. This, he remembers, is what tipsy felt like once upon a time—but he's not had anything but water since dinner time.

Steve can hear his own breathing, raspy like he's run a marathon too fast, but he can't stop himself. His eyes are open but the world's a blur. He could try and think about why he's freaking out so badly, but Steve's not particularly sure he wants the answer.

He's thinking maybe, maybe he might walk back to the mansion when the door opens to the club. Steve turns automatically—a life full of fighting bad guys makes one a little jumpy by necessity—and wishes he hadn't, because Tony's leading out the blond guy who had been—who had—Well, his latest conquest—by the belt.

Tony does pause when he sees Steve, but tugs the man out with him and he cocks his head arrogantly, as if daring Steve to say something he can be a smartass about.

Steve's learned never, ever to rise to any of Tony's dares.

"Captain," Tony yells, his companion giggling a little, "good to see you." The guy pushing his laughing face into Tony's shoulder lifts his head up, his cheeks stained red. Tony's obviously told him about Steve's intrusion into their, um, private space. "This is Nick. Nick, this is Captain Steve Rogers-hyphen-America."

Nick—and Steve doesn't know why he's surprised by now—is another blond, although Nick has a scruffy mess of facial hair that Lucas and Ryan didn't, and he's much less built than Steve. Still, the resemblance is there. Unmistakeable. Taunting Steve into doing something he won't be proud of.

So he swallows everything back and smiles, in what he hopes isn't a grimace, at Nick. "That's just America to you, son."

Nick nods, and looks Steve up and down, speculatively. Then he tugs at Tony's shirt. "Does your friend want to come join the party?"

Tony looks at Steve, a long, assessing look that's full of something unreadable. Mischief. Promise. "No," Tony says, meeting Steve's gaze, "I don't think he has the bottle. The day Captain America does something just for fun—I think the continent would submerge in shock."

Steve feels his own face tense, like he has no control over it, so he tilts his head and looks at Nick, a lazy smile on his face that might—by Nick's frown—look a little scary. "Don't believe him. I did a Sudoku completely unprompted only three weeks ago."

"Hey," Nick says, quite brightly, "three weeks ago, wasn't that when the Baxter building nearly melted down?"

"You're a funny one," Steve tells Nick, making sure his face shows how unamused he is.

"I'd love to stay out here in the cold chatting," Tony says. "Wait, that's a complete lie. I hate this sort of thing. I'm just going to go and—" He makes a rude gesture with one hand, and Steve rolls his eyes.

"I'll see you in the morning," Steve says, and tries to keep his teeth grinding as inaudible as possible as Tony nods and leads Nick away, one hand indecently low on Nick's pants.

The frustrated sound slips out of Steve's mouth before he can stop it, and he stays still and hates himself furiously for ten minutes before shoving his hands in his pockets and starting the walk back to the mansion.

* * *

The thing is, Steve's had sex. Not a lot of sex, but a little. After spending a lot of time swallowing down all the new ideas and grieving about his lost past, Steve knew it was unhealthy to not try and have a personal life in amongst the robot slaying and apocalypse averting that is regularly on the Avengers' to-do lists.

There was Gemma, who dumped him when he would only go as far as kissing her on her porch. There was Karyn-with-a-y, who took his virginity politely and then moved to Japan for an amazing job opportunity. Then there was Shelly, who taught him about blow jobs and then suggested, kindly, that maybe he wanted to take a guy out for a spin around the dating world next time.

Neil was Steve's first foray into trying out Shelly's suggestion. Neil was Steve's publicist's cousin, entirely discrete, and he asked Steve to fuck him on their third date. Steve made him hold out for another two months, and then did, and they dated for maybe another eight months before Neil apparently _accidentally_ fell in love with his secretary.

Steve hadn't been in love with Neil, but it took him a few months of grieving to come to terms with that, and then there'd been Sharon. Sharon Carter, Peggy's grand—niece. _That_ train crash had been crazy as anything. Steve doesn't really _regret_ it—especially as it was proof he was as flexible about men and women as Tony was—but sometimes, when the memory of her _hurts,_ like a glass shard deep in his abdomen, he wishes he could have had the foresight to end things with her before it got so painful.

Steve and Sharon fought a lot at the end of their relationship. She thought he was too attached, too married to his job. She thought he spent too much time with the Avengers and should come live with her—he argued back that he needed to be with the other Avengers just in case a call came in, that they were weaker apart.

She thought he was in love with Tony, and she couldn't stay knowing Steve would always choose Tony over her.

Steve shouted back that it wasn't true, even though he could see why someone would think that. He and Tony clicked on a level no one else _could_ click with, because there just wasn't anyone else hard—headed enough.

Still, Steve knew one thing for sure—he was making her desperately unhappy—and so he didn't fight when she broke up with him.

It's been a year. It's been a long year. And Steve's surprised to find that the memories of her don't really hurt so much.

Not as much as the other pain he's feeling as he comes back into the mansion through the back door.

Tony's light is on.

Steve had taken the time to learn whose rooms were whose—which lit room meant someone was in, which lit room was just someone being forgetful (Bruce, usually)—and so he knows Tony's the only one back, because the kitchen light is off and the rec room is dark, and Tony's room is the only one lit up like a Christmas tree.

Steve slinks up the stairs in the dark. The serum made his night vision amazingly good. His rooms are on the other side of the mansion, in what Tony told him once, in a low and almost embarrassed tone, were Howard's rooms.

Sometimes it's hard to reconcile the Howard from Steve's memories from the Howard from Tony's rare tales, but the damage in Tony is impossible to ignore. Steve swallows, regret sour like ash in the back of his throat. Had Steve been able to remain part of Howard's life, would Howard have become less driven in his work? Would Steve have, at least, been able to provide an odd mentorship as an older voice of experience in Tony's childhood?

Steve's regrets, since being defrosted, have been nothing if insistent.

Except those regrets have nothing to do with how he's feeling now. He still feels like he could rip the skin from his own body if he tried. Steve keeps his hands tight, close in to his body.

He distracts himself. He takes a shower. He goes down to the gym and smashes out all seven of his punching bags. When he comes back up the stairs, Tony's bedroom light is still on. Steve takes another shower, a bitingly cold one that doesn't make him feel any better or any worse.

Sleep. Perhaps sleep will help. It's only 1 am, two hours before Steve's normal sleep time, but sleep sometimes stops any painful memory—unless he starts dreaming of the ice again.

Steve closes his eyes.

Tries to sleep.

But the thing Steve's been ignoring all night, the ache between his legs, is too much to ignore.

Steve hisses through his teeth. Tries his best to ignore his erection. It's ridiculous. It's been there in some form since he locked eyes with Tony in that back room, as Nick's head bobbed up and down between Tony's thighs. Now he's out of there, Steve can recall the sounds of that room. The sighs and the muffled cries. The smell of sex, thick in his nostrils. The look of pleasure on Tony's face.

Somewhere upstairs, Tony and Nick are—are—

Tony will be pressing Nick down into the mattress. Kissing him, open mouthed, hot and heavy. Pressing Nick apart with his fingers.

Steve's breathing shallows. He fists his own erection loosely, lazily, and feels terribly, horribly guilty. There's no way on earth he should be doing this, touching himself to the mental image of—

Nick's thighs, tight around Tony's hip as he rides him, Tony's erection disappearing into Nick's tight depths as Nick rolls his hips, taking Tony in all the way, until he rests balls deep—

Steve's hips thrust into his own hand, his fingers scorching a vice around his erection, the friction almost on the edge of painful as Steve's hips stutter up from the mattress into his own hot grip.

Nick will be fucking himself on Tony's cock, determined, rhythmical. Tony's room, filled with grunts and the sound of skin slapping against skin. Nick's face in Tony's shoulder, his teeth catching against Tony's skin, as Tony fucks up in the small space between them, his balls tightening, and Tony will do that breathless, honest laughter when something has caught him off—guard, something terribly amusing—

Steve's hard, too hard, straining, pulsing, angry. His hand moves rapidly, slicking up his length with pre—come, the pad of his thumb roughly teasing his foreskin with every fist pump.

Tony will be wearing a condom, of course, Tony's careful like that—that's strong in Steve's thoughts even though this is something he can't know for sure, because the idea of Tony barebacking countless strangers is too much to mentally process, Steve would implode from the worry along with the jealousy—and Tony will be as hard as Steve is now, pulsing with it, heart racing with it, body moving almost of its own volition now, racing towards climax.

Nick will clench, because who wouldn't clench, who wouldn't try their best with Tony's cock snuggled so deep inside them. Nick will be clenching, maybe right now, and it'll be too much for Tony. His come will be streaking into the condom, exploding out. Or maybe Tony pulls out, discards the condom, so he can come across Nick's chest in thick, painted strokes of white, shutting his eyes and biting his lip as his cock expels its intoxicating emissions blindly across Nick's pale skin. Some of it will probably be on Nick's face. Tony'll bend down to lick it off, because he's dirty like that, dirty and powerful and in control and—

Steve's come all over himself, everywhere and over the sheets too. He lies there, heart—pounding, scared and ashamed all at once for the longest minute, before forcing himself to get up and clean himself off at the sink.

He stares at his glassy—eyed, reddened expression in the mirror hanging above it. In the semi—dark of the room, Steve looks gaunt, haunted.

He supposes he is.

Steve pauses to yank the sheet off his bed, throwing it into the corner with the rest of his laundry and sinking back down onto the edge of the bare mattress, busying himself by being quietly appalled at his brain.

He's never come so hard in his life before. And just one mental flashback to his imagined Tony, cock thick and hard, bobbing against his stomach—it's enough for Steve's dick to twitch interestedly again.

Well, shit and _fuck._

This, Steve decides crossly, is definitely a tick in the _con_ column for the 21st Century.

* * *

When the morning arrives, annoyingly on schedule, Steve's feeling a lot more philosophical about matters. It just has to be some weird psychological thing about being in such claustrophobically close quarters with someone. Tony and he are friends, _best_ friends, and they risk their lives together with freakish regularity. These sort of feelings were _bound_ to happen.

It's not like he's in love with Tony. He just wants Tony to fuck his brains out. Judging by the number of people that troop in and out of Tony's bedroom, Steve's not alone in this matter.

Lust is just a bodily reaction, that's all. And it's a bodily reaction Steve can control. The time since leaving Sharon and Neil has proved that _time_ is a brilliant healer. In time, this silly little crush will be nothing but something for Steve to chuckle about when Tony comes down in the morning with truly silly bed hair.

Steve's feeling pretty good about everything, all things considered. This morning, he gets his juice _and_ his favorite seat _and_ he misses Clint's pyromaniac misadventures. Bruce is back and looking as happy as anything. Natasha refrains from the ketchup and her breakfast—for once—doesn't look like she's killed something and is eating it raw. Sure, Nick actually _snuggles_ Tony for a moment at the breakfast table, and Steve's stomach turns miserably, but that's _normal._ Steve doesn't punch Nick, scowl at Tony, flip the table or bark at any of his team mates.

This is going to go _swimmingly_ well.

He even vets Nick like usual, so no one will notice anything's off with him. Nick replies noncommittally about his job, something about working for a branch of the Government, or auditing them, or—well, Steve usually stops listening when they don't admit their profession is _assassin_ , because there's enough of them at the breakfast table of a morning as it is.

Feeling pretty good again, Steve even finds himself humming happily as he starts to fill up the dishwasher. Clint slaps Steve's shoulder as he passes, saying something loud and congratulatory about Steve getting laid last night.

Tony comes over then, and Steve makes himself as least guilty looking as possible when his brain finally is able to translate the feeling he's been having when seeing Tony's face as _I would not be opposed to licking his cheek_ , and Tony hands Steve his breakfast plate and says, in a low voice, "Did you?"

Steve's about to ask _did I what?_ when he realizes what Tony is asking. His good mood evaporates a little bit.

Okay, a lot. Steve tries not to react, but he feels like scowling. And like throwing something. He does neither. Instead, he catches glimpse of Nick, looking over at Tony interestedly, and his stomach tightens. Steve tilts his head a little, and lifts his chin, and says, "I don't really think it's any of your business."

Tony's gaze dips for a moment—Steve's apparently lust-addled brain thinks it's to Steve's mouth, so he tells his brain off for wishing—and then Tony locks gazes with Steve again, and it's that same, intense look from last night, when Steve had caught Tony and Nick together in the club. Like he's daring Steve to do something. Steve thinks, crazily, that something is about to happen—

And Tony just shrugs, says "Right" in this distracted tone, and he turns away to lead Nick outside, leaving Steve clutching Tony's crumb—scattered plate.

Steve stares after them, miserable and hating everything. He's so absorbed—sulking, his doctors say, might have been one of his attributes that the serum enhanced—that he doesn't notice Natasha sidle up to him. Then again, sometimes when he's paying full attention she's good at that, so he doesn't feel too bad at missing her moving.

"You okay?" Natasha asks, her gaze following Steve's to the empty door.

"Huh?" Steve says, "Why—"

She looks pointedly at the plate in his hand. Apparently he's put a deep crack in it with just his thumb.

"Shoot," Steve says, looking at it dismally.

"It's fine. We have a Hulk. Ergo, we have a discretionary crockery budget," Natasha says, prising the plate out from his hand and throwing it into the bin. From five metres away. Steve isn't even a little bit surprised. Some effortless amazing feats aren't even worth a blink around the Avengers mansion any more.

"Tax deductible, if it's Tony's doing," Steve says, with an easy shrug. He forces himself to turn away from the door and to the dishwasher.

"Tony's being a dick," Natasha says. Steve's head whips to hers automatically, in a way he suspects _any_ sentence with Tony and dick in will make him respond for a while. He frowns at her in confusion, but doesn't say anything. It's probably useless. Natasha can deduce anyone's endgame with one random word you say without thinking about it. "We all talked about you behind your back at the club when you were gone."

"Thanks," Steve says, starting to balance the glasses in the dishwasher.

"He's being a dick," Natasha repeats. "Hopefully he'll fuck these guys, get you out of his system, and he'll stop being such—"

"A dick," Steve finishes for her.

"Ooh," Natasha says, low, like she's been hurt. "I didn't know you _had feelings_ for him, Steve. We just thought you might have been a bit wigged out. I'm sorry. He's even more of a dick than I thought. Does he know?"

Steve blinks. He only repeated her words, he didn't say anything about feelings for Tony———Dammit. Conversing with the Black Widow should carry a _warning._ He looks at her, oddly relieved that he doesn't have to lie to her. "No," he says firmly, "and he's not going to."

"You're right," Natasha says. "He doesn't know how to do commitment. And you could do without another broken heart."

Steve opens his mouth to contradict her. Natasha just gives him a _please, don't even try_ look, and he shuts it. "Guess I was trying not to notice my heart even was involved," Steve says. "It's no biggie," he hurries to add. "Time heals all wounds, etc. And it's just a crush. Really."

"Keep telling yourself that," Natasha says, patting his shoulder empathetically. The gesture nearly winds him. Steve feels sorry for any _non_ -enhanced humans that she tries to console, because _damn,_ she's got some force behind her. "No, really. Keep telling yourself that. It'll help convince your brain more quickly."

"Thanks," Steve says, sliding the top drawer of the dishwasher in, and rooting around for the tablets.

"We've all noticed Tony being an ass," Natasha says, "so if you need to talk—Bruce is a good choice." _Not me_ is something she doesn't need to say. Natasha understands dealing with emotions is necessary in any unit who has to fight together—but she doesn't have much patience with any emotion that takes longer than about sixty seconds to get over. Panic attacks, possible check. Screaming or other vocal surprise, yes. Painful unrequited lusting? Not. Her. Division.

"Thanks, Tash." Steve exhales hard, really wishing he could have pushed fastforward and skipped that whole conversation ( _see,_ Agent Hill is wrong, Steve _is_ getting the hang of 21st Century lingo)—but he feels oddly relieved too. It's nice to know his people have his back.

What he doesn't know, until he saunters out of the kitchen, a contented sort of hum still trailing from his mouth, is that he's going to need them more than he thinks.

Because Steve runs almost straight into one of Tony's trainwreck conversations.

He hangs back. He should keep going, go hide upstairs. He doesn't need to hang around like a lovesick puppy. He doesn't need to hear Tony reassuringly break up with this dude so Tony can be free to go after the _next_ person that bats their eyelashes at him.

So of course he hangs around. Back in the shadows like the terrible teen stalker he actually is.

"So," Nick purrs, clinging onto Tony's neck, stroking Tony's beard with the pad of his thumb, "when can I see you again?"

Here it is. Steve's feeling smug and self—satisfied. Here is where Nick the Government guy crashes and burns, joining Tony's pile of rejects. He should feel sorry for Nick, who's about to be dumped like a mouldy sack of potatoes, but he feels vindictively pleased. Not for himself. Who went around and gave a blow job to a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist in the first, what, ten minutes of meeting one, anyway?

"Tonight?" Tony says.

Steve swallows back all the smugness in one painful go.

"Just text me where you are at 8pm," Tony says. "I'll come pick you up."

"Sounds great," Nick says, leaning in for a brief peck goodbye. "See you then."

"Sure thing, hot stuff," Tony says, waving as Nick smiles seductively and then heads off down the steps.

Tony shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet before turning to go off to his labs, whistling under his breath.

Staring, Steve wanders out into the open space of the porch.

What the _hell_ just happened?

* * *

The thing is, Tony Stark just doesn't _do_ commitment. The whole world knows of the record three months he made with Pepper Potts, before he messed up big style after freaking her out by installing a magnetised version of his arc reactor in her chest when she had been hurt badly in a terrorist attack that she'd walked into on Tony's orders.

Pepper, it turns out, had a Do Not Resuscitate order in her file that Tony circumvented because—his theory—if she didn't _have_ a human heart (which was crushed in the attack), powering up a chest arc reactor didn't count. Because it isn't _technically_ a heart.

Pepper's forgiven him since (it's amazing what an Iron Man suit that can float across metal power lines can do to soothe a fractious soul), but their relationship disintegrated into tiny fragments, and Tony's never tried monogamy ever again. He's gone on _public record_ saying so. He always dumps his dates at the door after breakfast, and he never, never, _never_ takes anyone on a second date.

Steve very rarely wishes for one of Victor Von Doom's robot attacks, but he's sort of glad one happens that afternoon, because there's nothing like being able to sublimate one's anger on the head of something that he's allowed to hit as much as he likes.

"Uh, Cap," Clint says, "it doesn't take _that_ much force to drop them. Just sever the metal spine, not the whole head?"

A little while later, Natasha says, "Tony was hoping to salvage some of the computer chips for study. Turning them into dust isn't really a 21st Century definition of _salvage._ "

And then, "You know Hulk only crushed that ice-cream van because you didn't leave him enough robots to smash, right?" from Tony.

The Fantastic Four—for whom Steve blames for all Von Doom plots even though the metal tarantulas last summer were _definitely_ Charles Xavier's fault—arrive too late for the party. Clint, hilariously, manages to throw a mop directly at the Invisible Woman, informing the Four that clean-up is _their_ job.

Sue Storm, turning visible, _extra_ hilariously smacks Clint around the back of the head with the mop handle, and gives him a ten minute roasting of a lecture about misogyny and him setting back female rights a hundred years by automatically handing _her_ the cleaning equipment. Natasha smirks like mad the whole time.

Steve's feeling a little better. Violence _does_ seem to have its time and place. And it is always fun hearing Von Doom bitch and moan as they wait for the cops to arrest him.

"You didn't have to smash them up _quite_ so thoroughly," Von Doom whines, looking around dejectedly at his ruined creations. "What happened, did someone drown a kitten in front of you?"

"Shut up," Steve says, wishing he had Clint's skill of a clever comeback. Or maybe Peter Parker's sarcastic jibes. Except, last time he saw Peter he was sharing a vocal love fest with Mr. Fantastic and it had been highly, _highly_ creepy.

"Ah," Von Doom says, nodding empathetically, "you got cockblocked."

"No," Steve says, automatically, "I have not been—" He draws himself up, and pushes his mouth into the firmest line he can. "Captain America does _not_ get cockblocked. He gets cock practically _thrown_ at him, 24/7. I could have cock for lunch, dinner and breakfast if I wanted. I could—"

Von Doom just bursts out laughing.

"What do you know, you're just another scientist who covered themselves in metal—is that just in the scientist handbook?"

Von Doom keeps laughing.

Steve makes the disgusted sound he wants to make and practically throws Von Doom at the pair of cops who approach with a pair of the electrical handcuffs Tony designed after Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr's bored spree last fall when he floated around New York City, freeing criminals by opening handcuffs and unlocking car doors. Erik also spent some time randomly dropping people's flies. It had been ridiculously hard to track him down. Steve had had to work with Wolverine in the end, and Logan was—Well. There is a reason the Avengers have the pact not to work with the X-Men any more than they have to.

Steve's mentally ranting about it even that night, when all the clean up and paperwork is done and they're allowed to go home. He's not been _cockblocked._ Tony's not standing in the way of cock for him. Steve could go out and get as much cock as he _liked,_ if he wanted. There are plenty of men and women and other of consenting age in the world who would spread their legs for Captain America.

It's just a _temporary_ situation that Steve wants, at the moment, the worst man in the world possible for him to want.

(Well, okay, the second worst. If Steve ever ends up with a crush on Wolverine, he might just shoot himself.)

* * *

Nick is there at breakfast the following morning.

He's polite.

He's charming.

He's really freaking funny.

The other Avengers love him already.

Steve sits and sullenly stares at his glass, holding off from drinking it for as long as possible. Everyone knows he is stupid before his juice. It's just less common knowledge how stupid he is being _all of the time_ now. Seriously. It's not like Tony's even that hot. Not with his dark brown serious eyes, or the way he tilts his head back when he laughs, or his calloused hands that always seem to know what they're doing.

Um.

Okay, so. Denial's an option. Steve grabs for his glass and chugs it down before his morning stupidity annoys even _him._

"So," Steve says, when he puts the glass down, "Nick, what is it that you do?"

"You vetted him yesterday," Tony says.

"No, it's fine," (annoyingly accommodating) Nick says. "I guess I wasn't exactly honest yesterday."

Steve blinks. He hadn't thought he would score something so potentially _I can use this to get rid of him_ so early in the morning. Mostly because Steve's a good guy when it comes down to it, so the sneaky _let's get rid of Tony's creepy boyfriend_ idea must be... well, the rest of the Avengers rubbing off on him.

And Steve's poor lust—addled brain gives him a visual of that and, eww, eww, ewww. Over the last five years they've all seen much more of Bruce than they ever wanted to, and that's just for a start.

"Nothing too weird," Nick says. "At least—not weird by your standards."

"Our standards are pretty lax when it comes to weird," Natasha agrees. "Or you wouldn't be sitting at breakfast with a man who scales the _wall_ before he can eat."

"At least I use human strength to do it," Clint protests from his favorite corner. He shuffles, brushing crumbs from his knees onto the counter ten feet below him. "Imagine if you breakfasted with Parker."

Natasha shudders.

"I've always found it odd that an assassin named the Black Widow has arachnophobia," Bruce says to Steve in a low confidential tone.

Natasha overhears. Even if you whisper five blocks away in a room made of reinforced concrete, Natasha overhears. "It's because I'm so scary I'm even scared of myself," Natasha says.

"What is it that you do?" Steve asks Nick.

"It's easier to show you," Nick says. He holds up his hands slowly—and Steve's juice carton slowly moves a foot to the left.

Then it tips over, spilling its bright orange contents to the table.

Steve makes a strangled, sad sort of noise, and also, automatically reaches for a knife.

"You're a Mover," Natasha says, looking and sounding highly impressed. She tilts her head.

"A _what_ now?" Bruce asks, before Steve can. It's probably a good idea. The things going through Steve's head are not exactly coherent, and if Steve spoke, it would probably end up sounding something like, _get your freaky telekinetic powers off my Tony juice_ and there is no outcome where that could end up sounding right. "Removals?"

"A Mover," Tony says, "was part of the Governments MK-Ultra experiments back in the 70s. Before the Mutant community became more widely known, there were some... low level—say—mutants that weren't as powerful as the ones who _could_ hide. There were... movers, pushes, seers—"

"Sniffs, stitchers, bleeders, shadows—a ton of crazy names for what's basically a low—level, _no_ level mutant power." Nick shrugs. "It was only when your sort of hero came out of the woodwork that we stopped being chased. So really, I have to thank you. You saved my life. All our lives."

"I guess I've heard of you after all. SHIELD categorizes you as SA—Super Average," Natasha says. "We don't extend too much manpower looking where you all are. Well," she amends, "maybe some of the Pushers. They can push new memories into your head," she adds, glancing up at Clint meaningfully.

Clint blanches. Even five years isn't enough to erase the horror of mind control.

"Anyway," Nick says, "I was on the run for the longest time. Now I work for the same Government unit that tried to kill me."

"I know _that_ feeling," Bruce mutters.

Of course, Steve thinks. Of _course_ Nick would have something to make him bond even more with his team mates.

"I cleared all this with Ms. Potts before I was allowed back here," Nick says. "I'm not even a very good Mover. Hence why—" He waves his hands at the spillage and looks directly at Steve. "Sorry about your juice, man."

Steve smiles thinly. "It's okay. I'm hearing it a lot lately."

Nick's face forms into a question, but Steve doesn't answer.

He doesn't want to.

* * *

All of the Avengers have their own publicists or agents, and Steve doesn't know why he lucked out so badly.

Right, he remembers—Darcy Lewis used to be Thor's agent, until Thor retired from the Avengers to rule Asgard in its new American location. And Darcy had gone on and on at Thor about how she was going to fund her doctorate now, and Steve had taken pity on her.

Now he mostly just takes pity on himself.

"Are you really sure you won't do any adverts?" Darcy pleads, sitting on the edge of her desk. At the start of her being his formal media agent, she couldn't afford chairs. Steve bought her three nice office chairs for Christmas, but apparently Darcy just likes using furniture incorrectly. It's disturbing how well Darcy and Tony get on during the rare occasions their agents socialize with them.

"Ma'am," Steve says, because she's been on and on about it for ten minutes and he knows using _ma'am_ winds her up, and he's aware it's not entirely nice but after ten minutes of being in the same room as her and _not_ killing her, Steve probably deserves a prize, "I've told you before. My stance on adverts is firm."

"You _used_ to do them," Darcy whines.

"Yes," Steve says, through gritted teeth, "and I lost the small amount of dignity I had doing them. I don't have any dignity left."

"Which is why the dog food commercial would be _so brilliant,_ " Darcy insists, "because they want you to wear a human—sized dog outfit. You'd have to have no dignity to put it on."

Steve squints. Darcy sighs.

"Pretty damn sure Thor gave you to me to ensure I _wouldn't_ get my doctorate," Darcy says, melodramatically. "It's just desserts for tazing him, I suppose."

"You tazed someone whose speciality is thunder and lightning," Steve repeats, squinting. "I don't know what I did to Thor to deserve you."

Darcy beams, like it's a compliment. "So no adverts."

"No adverts," Steve says, like he does every week.

"Movie?" Darcy tries.

Steve sighs.

"You've gotta do something for me, you're killing me here." Darcy purses her lips. "One of my friends at college is an agent for the Fantastic Four," she says. "She's looking for someone to go see the sights with the Human Torch. You know, Johnny Storm's got a playboy rep that's almost as bad as Tony Stark's. It would do him good to be seen with someone of _your_ rep, your tight—ass rep will mellow, and Storm's agreed to pay for the dates, plus a couple hundred in commission for me. He's going in with the agreement it wouldn't be a date per se—only some cool dudes hanging out, or whatever. What do you say?"

Steve thinks about it. He's not actually come out as bisexual yet to the world at large, mainly because he doesn't like the fact that anyone has to be labeled in this sort of society, and love's pretty hard to find without imposing ridiculous limits. He thinks about how he feels about Tony. The liking guys part of the equation isn't apparently going to go away any time soon. He thinks about the Fantastic Four a little—he doesn't know if he's met Johnny Storm at any time when Storm _wasn't_ lit up like a human candle.

"I guess that's fine," Steve answers, eventually, even though he's basically agreeing to come out without it being entirely his decision. There probably isn't any good or right time to do it, and Steve's sat on it as a concept long enough.

He does have to try and move on at some point, and someone new—even if it's just a new friend, that might be what Steve needs to get his head out from Tony's crotch. Mentally speaking, of course.

"That's great," Darcy says, jumping off the table and grabbing her clipboard. "I'll give him your number and he can call you."

"I'd rather you acted as go—between—" Steve starts, but Darcy's already heading for the door.

"By the way," she says, pausing in the open doorway, "you're booked onto the Ellen Degeneres Show this afternoon. 2pm. There'll be a limo at the mansion waiting for you at 1pm. I guess I forgot to tell you about that."

"Darcy," Steve starts.

"Say hi to Thor for me if you see him before I do," she yells, and flees before Steve even has time to get out of his chair. "And suit up for it! I promised Ellen she could touch your shield!"

He contemplates jumping out of the window and frightening her by getting to her car before she can, but it's easier to stay in the chair. Steve prefers to be sitting down when he sulks.

* * *

Ellen lets him sit and sulk his way through the rehearsal. She's pretty neat like that. He likes her, and it's only a reluctant admission because he's still miffed at Darcy. However, one of the production assistants let him know that his fee—quite a substantial amount even with Darcy's low 3% knocked from the top—is going to Steve's favorite veterans' charity, so he can't sulk for too long.

Plus, having apparently read his unofficial biography and learning all about Peggy, Ellen doesn't make him get up and dance. She is pretty awesome.

And okay, Steve likes anyone who isn't a supervillain or trying to hurt someone, but Ellen—Yeah. Darcy's not completely rubbish.

Even when Ellen, when filming's actually started, gives him a piglet to hold while she holds his shield.

"Um," says Steve, as the audience coo. "Hi there, little pig."

It snuffles into his arms and promptly falls asleep. "I had some success with a baby sloth once," Ellen tells him, "now I randomly over the years hand some guests other baby animals. It's a thing."

"Okay," Steve says, amicably. It works a lot on Tony when Steve has no clue what it's saying. It seems to be some sort of 21st Century passphrase for the dazed and confused to skate through life without any serious hassle.

"So tell me," Ellen says, "what's it like sharing a house with superheroes? It's got to make sharing a bathroom pretty damn interesting if you have to fight for it."

"We did fight once," Steve admits.

"What happened?"

"Did you know New York used to have six boroughs?"

Ellen frowns. "Not many people alive today who can remember the 40s with clarity. Or the 60s, but for other reasons. I, personally, don't remember the 60s, and have mislaid my birth certificate so I don't know if I was a baby pothead, or just born in the 70s."

"Well, there were six boroughs up until the day we fought for the bathroom," Steve says, trying to keep a straight face. He can't.

"So, Tony Stark's brand of sarcasm, that's rubbed off on you. Pity. I was hoping to like you as a guest, now I guess I'm going to have to ban you too," Ellen says. Steve can't tell if she's joking, so he shrugs.

"Tony rubs off on all of us," Steve says.

"I bet he does," Ellen says, arching an eyebrow suggestively.

Steve pulls a face, which just makes Ellen laugh. She asks him some questions about the Avengers' proper business, which is really _why_ SHIELD told them all to agree to public appearances every now and again, although unless Fury _meant_ they should talk about business while holding a baby animal... Well, Fury should have stepped in and shipped Darcy off to Alaska, or somewhere else suitably distant.

Her questions are all pretty typical, if a little off tangent on occasion, which is why her last question nearly knocks him silent.

"I'm sorry for springing this on you as a last minute thing," Ellen says, "but my research assistant just buzzed through to me that Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four has just tweeted about taking you out to dinner."

Steve assumes what Clint calls his poker-face expression (Steve's never played poker and he never will, he's much too honest) and Ellen brings something new up on the TV screen that had been playing footage of Steve in his full Captain America regalia taking on Ares and Venom, the Dark Avengers, on Capitol Hill last year.

It's a Twitter page—Steve's learned to recognize the site if not how to properly use it, his official Verified account has one tweet saying "Hi!" and another saying "How you all doing?" and another saying "lkm." when his elbow decided to send a tweet for him. His account has apparently _the_ most followers on Twitter. Steve's much too nervous to let himself—or any other part of his anatomy—send another tweet, for fear of messing it up somehow.

Johnny Storm apparently doesn't have the same compunction.

"SCORED A DINNER DATE WITH MR STEVE ROGERS AKA CAPTAIN AMERICA. US HOT BITCHES GONNA GET IT ON SOOOOOON XXXX"

"Is that us hot bitches," Steve says, turning his head a little, "or U. S. hot bitches. I like to think it's the more patriotic alternative."

"There's already press waiting for you outside, Cap," Ellen says, having secured permission earlier in the interview to call him that. "Guess my producers thought it would be kinder to out you here, rather than in our parking lot."

"It's a pretty nice parking lot," Steve says, and he shrugs. "I guess most people would have put out a note to the press or something?"

"Yeah, we crazy kids tend to write them a nice letter," Ellen says. "Gotta say, I'm glad I'm holding your shield."

"I'd never hit a civilian," Steve says, "even one that throws the crazy shapes on the dance floor that you do."

"Why, thank you. You're much calmer than I thought you'd be."

"Well, I just scored a dinner date with the Human Torch," Steve says, with a shrug. "I'm saving my dorky flailing for later," he deadpans, to Ellen's obvious delight.

"Well I just wanna congratulate you for coming out so calmly," Ellen says. "It's a real pride and privilege to see someone of your stature _not_ demanding pomp and ceremony."

"I don't think there should be ceremony or a big deal made of it," Steve says. "I'm a human being capable of love. _That's_ what I have to make a formal announcement about? I don't get it."

"Me either," Ellen says. Then she pauses. She opens her mouth.

"And no," Steve says, "I'm trading this pig back for my shield in the next ten minutes, you can't keep it."

"How did you—" Ellen says, wrinkling her mouth.

"Ma'am," Steve says, "I live with Tony Stark. Voluntarily. I can smell potential anti-social behavior a block away."

Ellen grins ruefully and hands him his shield back, but not before she makes him balance the pig on it and sit it in his lap.

Steve looks down at the pig, and it sniffles at him in return. Say what you like about dressing up in the stars and stripes and punching Hitler out two hundred times in front of a chorus of scantily clad dancing girls, the 21st Century definitely has stranger ideas about entertainment.

* * *

It's late when Steve gets back to the mansion. Still in his uniform (it was quicker to escape while the press still thought they had time for Steve to wriggle out of his spandex into his civilian gear), he's looking forward to a couple of hours in the gym and something to eat and then he definitely plans to crash into bed too tired to have self—destructive masturbatory fantasies about Tony Stark, yes siree.

Except, because he _does_ live with Tony Stark, and Tony always has ideas that Steve double, triple hates and loathes entirely, Steve does not get to do any of the things he plans.

Because Tony, in the hour since Steve's appearance on Ellen has been broadcast across the nation, has put a party together.

Steve just about cries when he comes in through the doors and the Avengers—current and past—jump out, tooting party horns and throwing confetti at him.

There's even a roughly painted banner which says, in large red capital letters, "CONGRATULATIONS ON COMING OUT, CAP!"

It's official. Steve wants to die. Another seventy years on ice, totally not also sounding like a bad idea.

"I hate you all," Steve tells them.

"Aww," Tony says, of course being the one leading the crowd. He has a handful of red and blue paper leis in one hand and a drink in the other. "Really? Because we bought in. Like. A keg of that juice that wakes you up in the morning. Captain Go—Go Juice." Tony drapes the leis around Steve's neck, and just as Steve doesn't think this can get _any worse_ , Tony presses a kiss into his cheek and says, "Well done," in a genuine sounding, pleased tone that shivers right down Steve's spine and the Captain America uniform proves once again how just very good it is at holding all of him in.

He's going to be feeling that kiss _all night._

"Not entirely sure how appropriate it was to get outed on TV, though," Tony says, pulling back.

"Oh," Steve says, "I forgot I was supposed to do it buck ass naked in the Daily Bugle."

"Touché," Tony says, backing away to mingle with the other guests, "I walked into that one."

"Seriously," Steve says, after a moment, trying not to track Tony as he moves over to where Nick is leaning against the wall, smiling oddly, "seriously guys, this isn't a big deal."

"We know," Bruce says, moving in with Clint and Natasha to sort of provide a buffer around the rest of the Avengers. "You should see the headlines that have come up."

"You can," Natasha says, thrusting a tablet in Steve's face.

Steve stares at the screen full of headlines. CAPTAIN AMERICA COMES OUT—NO ONE IS SURPRISED. CAP GAY HOORAY. CAP GAY FOR STORM—WHO ISN'T? and one of the tabloids, CAP HIDES HETEROSEXUALITY WITH BIG GAY LIE. Steve blinks. He looks up at them, squinting, "I guess I didn't think it was such a big deal? Especially not a big enough deal for a party."

"Oh, this?" Clint says. "We found an industrial—sized pack of chips in the basement that are nearly at their expiry date and were looking all night for an excuse."

Steve looks past Clint and sees a table laden down with a hundred different bowls of chips. "And your first thought was _party?_ Not, oh, _taking them to the nearest soup kitchen_?"

"I said that!" Bruce says. "I did. I suggested it. But Tony wanted a party. And when he gets his mind set on something... And we thought it might be nice to distract you too."

Steve frowns. "Distracted from what?"

"Bruce, don't," Natasha says, softly.

"What," Clint says, "we've all noticed it. Tony's let's-bone-all-the-Cap-clones campaign."

Steve's stomach sinks and he feels horribly vulnerable and miserable. He opens his mouth to say something, but Clint barges in regardless.

"We're not blind. Every single one of the men—and women—Tony's been bringing home for the last month have looked like you, Steve. We've all seen that. And now Nick seems to be hanging around and you two could almost be _twins,_ " Clint says, apparently oblivious to the death glare Natasha's giving him.

" _Clint,_ " Natasha hisses. Steve's stomach jumbles, because Lucas was the first time he let himself notice that the blond-and-blue-eyed-Steve-resembling-hook-ups had been going on for longer than just this week, and he doesn't like being called on his denial.

Not when he's already feeling raw and open.

" _What,_ " Clint says, shrugging. "It's an elephant in the room and I'm pointing it out. Big, pink, gay-for-Steve elephant, _there it goes._ "

"Clint has a point," Bruce says, in the awkward way he does when he doesn't want to admit something is a thing.

"Nick couldn't be my twin," Steve says, but even Natasha raises her eyebrows at that. Steve flickers a look over to where Tony and Nick are holding hands, and he swallows, and looks at the three of them. He shrugs, stiffly. "Okay. Sure. It's a little weird. It's been freaking me out some. But c'mon, what are the odds of someone being blond and blue—eyed. I can't deny Tony his type just because I feel a little bit funky about it."

"So you're just going to hold back and not say anything to him," Clint says. "Tony owns the place but this is our home too. You're allowed to cause a little bit of a stink if there's something any of us are doing to make you feel uncomfortable. Tony brought an archer home once. I roasted him afterwards."

"Not everyone is as delicate a snowflake as you, Barton," Natasha says.

"Does anybody else understand it when she speaks Russian?" Clint asks. Natasha sends him a look which clearly says _and you're still breathing... how?_ "We can come with you, if you want," Clint continues, as ever obliquely unaware of how close to death he's just come. "I'm secure enough in my manliness to provoke a girlish discussion out of anyone. Once I talked about hair ribbons with Chuck Norris."

"No," Steve says.

"He really did," Natasha says, looking embarrassed.

"I mean, _no._ No discussions. Girlish or otherwise."

"We can cheer you on from over here," Barton says, helpfully.

"I'm not going to say anything," Steve says. He looks at the three of them, firmly. "He seems to have settled on Nick. Now however unhappy I am that Nick initially lied to us about his job... Tony must be happy with him to have settled. You know we've never seen the same person more than once before. You _know_ that. So I'm not going to a say a _thing._ "

"What we're trying unsuccessfully to say," Bruce says, "is that if you _did_ say something, we'd be on your side."

"And I appreciate that," Steve says. He looks over to where Tony and Nick are, and then turns back to his friends. "But if I say anything to Tony... We're friends. Good friends. Good friends don't do stupid things to make their friends unhappy. I don't want him dumping someone who he obviously likes a lot because it's a bit disturbing that he's—"

"—Regularly fucking someone who has a practically carbon copy of your face?" Clint mutters.

"That," Steve says, heavily. "It would make him miserable. And I'd be miserable about _making_ him miserable. It's much better this way. I'd rather—just be the only one miserable." Steve looks down and scratches at his arm, not because it itches, but because it's an excellent strategy to avoid looking them in the eye.

"Oh," Bruce says, on a fast inhale. "Steve, we didn't know. I'm so sorry."

"What are we sorry about?" Clint demands. "What did I miss?"

"We'll tell you later," Natasha says, "you've done enough damage for now."

Clint makes a small disgusted noise. There's enough real, sad kindness in Bruce's words and face, though, to give Steve enough strength to look up again. Steve shrugs at him, helplessly. "I'm going to go change into something less—"

"Spangly?" Clint says.

"Restrictive," Steve says, firmly. "Save me some chips?"

"If we have to," Bruce says, forcing cheerfulness even though his dark eyes are still wide with empathy. Bruce knows something about being forced apart from someone he loves, so Steve—

Oh. Shit. He knows his heart was in this a little, but this—

Today's a thousand times worse all of a sudden, and a thousand times more claustrophobic, and it must show on Steve's face because Natasha's face softens around the edges of her mouth, and she nods at Clint and Bruce and helps lead Steve through the congratulatory crowd to the stairs.

Steve stumbles up the stairs as quickly as he can. He doesn't quite know how he stays upright. It's inconvenient of the world to sway under his feet. It's convenient of his bed not to move when he tumbles onto it. It's highly convenient of the wall not to mind as he stares at it in loathing.

Maybe it's because Steve's directing all the loathing at himself. Because he's an idiot. He's a super—enhanced idiot in a red, blue and white spandex suit.

A super—enhanced idiot in love with Tony Stark.

* * *

One of the laws of being a superhero is that enemy attacks usually come when it's most inconvenient.

So of course—barring the fairly—fortunate robot run the other day—the inverse predominantly holds true: there's never a supervillain attack when it would be _convenient._

Steve ends up having to socialise at this weird party that he doesn't want because it's _not a big deal._ Apart from the fact where some of the Avengers come up and thank him, and Steve has no idea being discrete about being open to dating guys could be a bad thing. He might have never hidden Neil in the first place if he knew so many of his once—colleagues would thank him so much.

Apparently being high—profile and open—minded is just a good thing in the 21st Century.

Still, socialising, any sort of praise, it's all what Steve finds super uncomfortable, so as soon as he can, he snags a bottle of ginger beer and heads outside to sulk.

Sulking is definitely one of his specialties.

Of course, because life isn't perfect _at all,_ Steve doesn't get the alone time he's craving.

Worse, it's interrupted by the last person Steve wants to be interrupted by.

"Hi," Nick says, awkwardly. He's holding a bottle of ginger beer too. In the same way Steve is. They even have very similar _hands._

"Hello," Steve says, but doesn't say anything else. He'd rather not encourage a conversation if he doesn't have to.

"Great thing you did," Nick says. "Even if you don't know it."

Steve mutters something incomprehensible. Even if he doesn't know what it might have been, had it made it out of his mouth as a word.

"Look," Nick says, stepping around and forcing Steve to look him in the eye, "I know you pretty much hate me. But I'm—I might be a part of things a lot more around here than you'll be happy with. And I—I'd rather just clear the air. Of all the people in the world I'd like to have mad at me, Captain America is kind of at the bottom of that list."

Steve squints at Nick, his mouth feeling dry. "I don't hate you," he says. Meaning it, a hundred per cent. It's true. The person he hates right now is himself.

"You don't like me," Nick says, with conviction.

Steve gives him a look and thinks about lying. He shrugs. "I don't know you."

"Okay," Nick says. "That's a fair answer. I can't expect you to instantly trust or like me. It's just—I feel like I know you already. Tony talks about you all the time."

"He does?" Steve blurts.

Nick gives him a long, assessing look that Steve doesn't like. "Of course," Nick says, "you're his best friend."

Steve scoffs. "Yeah, like that's been happening recently."

Nick frowns. "Oh. Um. I guess I've been stealing his attention the last few days. No, I see your position. It's gotta be hard, like I'm stealing him away from you a little. I'll make sure he still has time for you, Steve. Even though you know he needs a bit of prodding to raise his head out of his machinery sometimes."

Steve exhales, feeling a little dizzy, like he's not there. Steve might not know Nick, but it sounds like Nick's got a good handle on Tony already, and that's what Tony needs. People who understand him. People who don't bullshit him.

"You're a good man, Nick," Steve says, nodding slowly. "Give me a little time to warm to you? I'm used to threats in our lives. I'm used to Tony discarding his toys. A bit of time and then we'll hang out, yeah?" And it hurts, it honestly _hurts_ a little, but Steve always does the right thing, _always,_ so he holds out his hand for Nick to shake.

Nick beams, looking honestly delighted. "Man, I'm so relieved." He takes Steve's hand and shakes it firmly before drawing up next to him, like they're good acquaintances. Steve swallows the ungracious impulse he has to step away. "Cassie would have had my _hide_ if I stayed on Captain America's bad side."

"You can call me Steve," Steve says, reluctantly, and then asks, "Cassie?"

"Oh, she's a Seer. My best friend. She draws the future. It's a funny thing—I didn't realize even who I was with at the club until we hit the lights, and—" Nick looks into the distance, shaking his head and smiling ruefully. "She drew me this picture for my birthday, you should have seen the scowl on her face—she'd ripped up the dirtier ones. And—clear as day, as soon as I saw it, I knew Tony was the guy in the picture. Here." Nick fumbles in one of his pockets, pulls out a wallet and pulls out a carefully folded square of black paper. He hands it to Steve.

Steve opens it, and his breath almost catches in his throat. It's an exquisite sketch of Nick and Tony, holding hands and smiling at each other. Nick could almost be Steve in the picture, except—of course—the sketch has Nick's scruffy hair, not Steve's immaculate 40s style.

There is something on the drawing of Tony's partner that neither Nick nor Steve have—a thick, twisting scar down the right cheek. Steve points at it, the question apparently already clear on his face.

"Oh, I don't have that yet." Nick shrugs. "Cassie's visions are pretty spot on now. Way better than they used to be. I guess maybe it'll be some souvenir from hanging out with the Earth's Mightiest Heroes."

Steve colors—he hates that nickname for the Avengers. "And Cassie drew this?" Steve questions. Nick nods. "She's amazing. I'd love to meet her."

"She might deafen me if I tell her that," Nick says, taking the picture back. "She's a big fan. Credits you _specifically_ for stopping the Government coming after our asses. I'm especially glad—I've been keeping her alive since she was 13. Being able to stop in one place meant I could buy her art classes. She's an art teacher now. 18 and precocious as anything." He smiles fondly. "She might end up working for SHIELD, too. Her vision's getting better and better. Whereas my powers—" Nick waves his hand. A tree nearby sways a little even though there's no wind. He shrugs.

"Natasha told me a little about the SHIELD SAs," Steve blurts. It's technically true, but mostly, Steve just looked it up online—Tony never filtered his hacking, so the whole mansion had access to the places he broke into, including SHIELD and the White House and the UN and pretty much every major international security agency. "You could be better. With practice."

"You know, that's not a half bad idea."

Steve turns with a shock to see Tony standing on the path. He has an ever—present drink in his hand, and an inscrutable look on his face. "How long have you been there?" Steve blurts, feeling a little bit ashamed. Nick's new to him, but Tony's been around Steve for a long five years. Tony knows Steve's tics, and _knows_ Steve likes _everyone._ Automatically. So if he knows Steve doesn't like Nick from the bat, Tony will know something is up, and then it will be a million times awkward.

Tony, however, ignores him.

"What's not a half bad idea?" Nick asks.

"Practice," Tony says. "We have a weekly Avengers practice every Thursday."

"Tomorrow," Steve says.

Tony frowns. He loses track of days sometimes. "Oh, yeah. The West Wing's around again. Tomorrow's Thursday. You should come down. See what we do. See if we can't jog those powers, level you up a little."

"I'm not a computer game character," Nick says. He looks at Steve. Obviously gauging to see how welcome he's going to be.

"Might be hairy," Steve says. "Might be where you get that scar. But—" He shrugs. "Fighting with the Avengers is always pretty fun, at the end of it. So if you think it's worth the risk?"

"Hey, what scar?" Tony demands. "Any scar that's not mine is totally sexy. Do you have a scar?" He paws at Nick a little. "Why didn't you show me?"

"I," Nick says, turning into Tony's personal space, "have shown you more than enough."

"And this is where the situation gets awkward and I go back inside before you start giving me a floor show," Steve says loudly, because that at least he can get away with.

"Your loss," Tony says with a hand wave. Steve pulls a face that makes Tony laugh, and it's Tony's laughter that rings in his ears as he flees back inside the party, and that keeps him awake most of the night, mocking him.

* * *

Breakfast after Avengers parties is not always to rote, Steve knows that, so he's not entirely surprised to come down and find Clint sitting at the table, eating cold pizza and chips.

He is surprised to open the fridge and find three of the emptier shelves are now full.

Stocked with his favorite juice.

"Someone," Steve says slowly, "someone is bribing me. I'm Captain America and I do not stand for such bribery, even when it's sunshine in a carton."

He looks around the fridge door to level a Meaningful Look (capitalization intended) at the likeliest culprits, only to find no one is paying him any attention.

Oh, yeah. Because pre-juice Steve isn't the brightest superhero in the room.

He pointedly grabs one of the cartons and takes it to the table. Pours out a glass. Drinks it down.

"Yes," Clint says, "you drank my apology juice, now you have to accept my apology."

"Apology juice?" Tony asks. Steve tries not to start too much—he hadn't quite registered everyone was at the table already. "What did you say?"

Clint opens his mouth. And then winces. Natasha's looking pretty smug and seems to have suddenly mislaid her fork. Steve winces on Clint's behalf. "Um, more like what I didn't say," Clint says.

"It's a lot of juice," Nick offers. "You must have been a real dick."

"Well, someone was," Clint mutters. Natasha doesn't even bother hiding the elbow she digs into his side. Clint stops wincing in pain. Eventually.

* * *

Training, for the Avengers, takes place in a very abandoned forest a few miles out of town, so that they don't a) scare anyone or b) kill anyone. Over the years, Tony's added several new training toys, but most of them don't survive Bruce's turn to play rabbit.

It's probably not the smartest way to train, but that's how they've found works for them—one of them will pretend to be a supervillain, while the other Avengers give chase. It's actually pretty suicidal, except for the fact that most of them are indestructible. (And then there was that time that no one slept for four days. In the end, they had to put up a parlay sign to Natasha and admit it was a good thing she never gets a _let's rule the whole world_ whim, because no one can actually stop her.)

It's Bruce's turn, actually, but as soon as he hears Nick's coming to play with them today (and yes, Steve might have used the word _play_ just to freak him out some) he starts shuffling and umming and ahhing and making vague noises about calling Thor in for back-up and he only quiets when Steve offers to take the villain role.

It's been a while. Mainly because—

"See," Clint says, as he flies them to their training spot, "I can't ever fully grasp a scenario where Steve's a supervillain. He's just too good."

"How about," Bruce says, "the Red Skull mind washes someone to shoot him with a Time-Manipulating bullet, thus sending Steve's consciousness through time just long enough for the Skull to inhabit Steve's brain, thus leaving Steve as a villain for us to fight physically while Steve wrestles the Skull mentally in his brain."

Steve ponders over that oddly-specific scenario.

Then Bruce shakes his head, "Nah, even I'm reaching. That would never happen."

"Imagine," Tony says, "a future with no juice."

Steve frowns at the five faces that turn his way speculatively.

His face heats. "I hate you all," he tells them. And then tags on, quickly, "I don't. I'm just peeved at how well you know me," just in case any of them believes he hates them. For all the super powers in this one jet, there's also an incredible amount of low esteem, and Steve doesn't want to trigger any of them into a breakdown. No matter how much he's been secretly hoping to accidentally knock Nick out.

"Hey," Tony says when they land, tapping Steve on the upper arm gently, "go easy on Nick for me, would you?"

Steve just nods. He's a good guy. Also, he can't seem to deny Tony anything.

After a brief warm-up that Steve's not going to get into the details of (because it's embarrassing is what, and involves a crazy reprogrammed alarm clock that runs away and a very loud rendition of Nyan Cat on loop and it's _terribly embarrassing_ to see superheroes running around chasing something _that ridiculous_ and _who let's Tony invent Avengers warm-ups anyway_ ), Natasha wants to see what Nick is capable of at full force before she tries to push him further.

Steve takes his supervillain stance in the centre of the clearing, sets his feet apart, and clenches, waiting for Nick to attack. Nick, wearing no protective clothing, steps out nervously to face him. Steve flickers a glance over to Tony, who's in his Iron Man gear with the mask flipped up. There's an expression on Tony's face which is hard to decipher, so it might be fear.

Even though Steve promised to go easy on Nick, Tony doesn't trust that Nick's not about to get hurt.

Nick frowns a little, looking Steve up and down.

Steve exhales. "Are we going to just stand here all day or are we gonna dance, blond boy?"

"I'm not as blond as you," Nick retorts, automatically, "and I guess Tony just likes his men young—"

"I just can't do this," Steve says, looking at the others, ignoring Nick deliberately. "I just can't hit a child."

And _that's_ when Nick's power rocks into him.

"Newbies," Steve says, "you always fall for the obvious bait." It doesn't take him long to realize that Nick's power comes out like half of a shallow sphere, one from each hand, in a wave of power. It's easy then when he sees it, sees Nick throwing them towards him, for him to dodge. Growing bored, Steve decides to test Nick. See what he can do. He side—steps another blast of Nick's telekinesis, and with no warning hurtles his shield towards Nick's head.

Unprepared, Nick stumbles and trips to the ground, and Steve's shield embeds in a tree behind it.

"I told you to go easy," Tony yells, moving over to Nick. Steve throws him a betrayed look. Tony's clearly got Nick—shaped blinders on. A few weeks ago, Tony would never for a second not implicitly trust whatever Steve's motivation is.

Then again, a few weeks ago, Steve's motivation for everything had—albeit possibly not subconsciously—been a lot purer.

Steve clambers up the tree trunk nimbly, although not as swiftly as Clint and Natasha can scale heights, and retrieves his shield, dropping carefully down to the soil. He looks down at Nick and Tony impassively. Nick's half up off the ground. Tony still hasn't reached his side yet, ambling across the uneven surface.

"It's okay," Nick says, "I just fell over."

"I was just testing something," Steve says, with a shrug. The others are looking at him warily, tense. Hoping this isn't going to explode into something that could rip them apart. He appreciates them not trying to intervene. It means they trust him, even if Tony doesn't any more. "Nick doesn't have the self—survival instinct an Avenger needs. However..."

"However?" Tony doesn't even get half the word out as a question before Steve turns. Even though he's barely a handful of metres away, he sends his shield full—speed at Tony's unprotected face. Tony tenses, his suit reacting but much too late—it isn't registering Steve as a threat, so Tony's subconscious still implicitly trusts Steve even if Tony's consciously being a bit of an ass.

Steve's shield is inches in front of Tony's nose before it suddenly changes direction, sailing straight back at Steve.

It's a clumsy move, and it's slow enough for Steve to catch it without even reeling, and Steve can't help but smile. Because this, at least, he approves of. Anyone willing to protect Tony to any extent gets his automatic approval.

"However, he seems to have an excellent protective streak of others," Steve says. He wanders over and holds a hand to Nick, which Nick takes gratefully, getting to his feet.

Nick looks wide—eyed. Exhilarated. "I've never thrown a pulse out that fast _ever._ How did you—"

"The way you talked about Cassie last night—you've been protecting her since age 13, you said. You're a born protector, Nick. And that's what you need in a team." Steve swallows, and even though it's difficult, he says, "That's what we need in this team."

Nick's eyes widen even more. "Wow."

"Of course, that was a little pathetic," Steve says, "and I wanted Tony to be jelly. Well. I'd practically have him on toast right about now."

Nick frowns.

Steve looks across at the others. "How long do you think it'll take to train him up to be useful?"

Clint and Bruce look vaguely speculative. Natasha, however, looks a little furious. Steve sends her the best look he can over the empty ground, and her tense expression relents a little. "SA files said it can take three to four months for a Mover to get to a useful strength. Guess we could use a telekinetic in the Initiative. Especially with the number of mutants coming out of the woodwork lately."

"I'll think about it," Nick says. "Um. Would I have wear something spangly like you?"

Steve raises his eyebrows, pushes his mouth into a line, and apparently it's scary enough to make Nick squeak. "Maybe not _as_ spangly," Steve says. "Avengers, assemble into position," he calls out, rounding back to the centre of the clearing before he even has time to hate himself.

Natasha crosses by him, close enough to say, "I hope you know what you're doing" before she saunters into her favorite position, up the top of one of the tallest trees. She says she likes to give the others time to strike.

No one has called her out on it because they do all sadly need the little bit of extra time before she joins the fun.

* * *

Steve's aching and sore by the time they climb back into the quinjet, really hoping for a good long shower and hopefully a night with no mental replay of Tony and Nick's imagined bedroom pursuits. It's really hard, uh, difficult to think it's not going to be a problem—as they pretty much seem to be snuggling in the back. It's probably why Natasha's generously let Steve call shotgun for the return flight.

He's grateful. If he had to sit opposite to it, or heaven forbid up close, then there would have been every chance one or both of them would have noticed him grinding his teeth.

"You okay, Cap?" Clint asks. "Besides the now-even-to-me-blindingly obvious?"

"Already healing," Steve says, sending Clint a stoic nod and hoping it's not too subtle for the his friend to pick up on.

"And the other?" Clint says, keeping his voice low. Steve stiffens. In the corner of his eye he can see Tony quieten, and lean in, super interested.

"Time," is all Steve says, after a long moment. "That's all. It's worked before."

"Y'know," Clint says, and Steve sighs, because he's trapped in this space with Clint for at least another fifteen minutes, and Clint's advice isn't always That Good, and he also has an accidentally big mouth, so Steve's going to literally have to watch every syllable he says just in case and—

—okay, now Steve is legitimately going insane. He squints at Clint, who falls silent. Steve clears his throat, and frowns, and looks at Clint for a moment. "Can you hear that?"

"I can," Clint says, looking around the cockpit like the sudden music is being produced by the plane. "I'm not quite sure what it is, but I hear it."

"I know what it is," Steve says heavily, "I'm just a little hazy on the why."

He shifts around in his seat, and Tony sings, " _Who will campaign door-to-door for America? Carry the flag shore to shore for America?“_

"When we land," Steve interrupts loudly, "I can hurt you."

" _From Hoboken to Spokane, The Star Spangled Man with a Plan!“_ Tony grins. "I programmed the jet to reroute all phonecalls through the internal PA systems in case we get anything when we're flying. Hands free and all that. Gave everyone an appropriate ringtone."

"And this was appropriate," Steve says. "Fine, how do I pick up."

"JARVIS, connect Mr. Rogers through to his phonecall," Tony says.

 _“_ So I have to take a phonecall in public," Steve says, "Thanks."

" _I can call back and make this private later if you want, baby._ "

The thing is, even though Steve's never actually met Johnny Storm, he's read all the files and seen quite a few of Storm's exploits on TV, YouTube and StarkTube (less filters), so the sound of voice is already pretty recognisable.

Add to that the cockiness of the tone is a lot like Tony's voice, and Tony Stark and Johnny Storm are probably the two most confident men in the whole country, and Steve doesn't need an introduction.

"Uh," Steve says, "Hi Johnny Storm. He can hear me?"

"Should be able to," Tony says, "I patched it right through the jet and into our comms."

" _Ah, the man of iron speaks,_ " Storm calls through the phone line, " _wait, am I talking in the Avengers secret jet? Awesome._ "

"Closest you'll ever get, torchy."

" _Ha, you're a peach, Stark. So, Cap, sorry about the twitter furore. Guess I forget all the attention on that thing,_ " Storm says.

"Ha," Natasha says, loudly in disbelief. The others turn to look at her. "What," Natasha says, "everyone knows Storm's rep. He loves publicity."

" _Anywho,_ " Storm says, pretending he can't hear Natasha (it is probably _the_ best tip for saving one's life around the Black Widow—unless you use it too much) " _I was just wondering if I could pick you up at 8 tonight?_ "

"Um," Steve says.

" _Great! Catch you then!“_

The line disconnects before Steve can even finish his sentence. And then he just hides his face in both of his hands, because that seems like a much better plan than looking at the world straight on.

"Yeah, you scored a winner with that one, Cap," Tony says, winking when Steve turns to look at him, appalled.

"You're talking about the horrified look on my face? Because that's from that ringtone, _where did you find it._ "

"All the old adverts are in the archives if you know where to look," Tony says.

"Adverts? Steve, you've filmed... adverts?" Bruce asks, looking delighted.

Steve regrets facepalming with both of his hands, because now he has no further facepalming level to descend to.

"And movies," Tony says, "Wait, we've never told Bruce about the movies you were in? I have all three."

"I hate you so much right now," Steve moans through his hands.

"No, you don't," Tony says, almost sing—song.

"Well, I know what we'll be doing when we get back," Bruce says.

"Seriously, dislike. _Serious dislike,_ " Steve says, but even he knows it's a lie.

* * *

Storm picks him up at 8pm on the dot, which is great, because Steve is ready and waiting on the doorstep so he doesn't have to suffer the catcalls from the other Avengers. They didn't watch the Captain America films, which Steve's nicely relieved about, because he was actually quite proud of them in a weird way, but they have been singing _Star Spangled Man with a Plan_ every other time Steve runs into them.

Gah.

Anyway, Storm has a motorbike, which he makes Steve ride on the back of, so it's a pretty good start to the evening. Even if Steve has to ruin it when they pull up to a Japanese restaurant near the West End that's Steve been to before and liked, so maybe Darcy _did_ do something after all.

"Um," Steve says, "I don't want us to go in with false illusions or anything." Storm tilts his head and listens as he locks up his bike. "I couldn't say on the phone—too many ears—but I don't think I'm really in the position to date at the moment. I know Darcy said something about you being more relaxed and wanting to hang out, but I just want everything clear from the outset. I'm grateful, and I'll understand if you want to leave, but—"

"Hey," Storm says, "chill. I was about to level with you too. I'm definitely not looking for a date. My publicist wants me to hang out with other people, make people realize I'm not just a horn dog wanting to hoover up their women, you get me? I was pretty worried you might have hit me for stringing you on, but this sounds about perfect. We get dinner, some decent conversation, and our publicists get off our backs, yeah?"

Steve smiles, exhaling hard in relief. "Oh, thank goodness." He straightens a little. "Not that I would have hit you."

"Man, you'd have tried," Storm says, slapping him on the back jovially. "But I tend to flame right up if people even just swing at me. I'd hate to set Captain America on fire."

Steve smiles. Maybe this isn't going to be as hard or weird as he thought it was going to be after all.

He does have a nice time. Storm has a great—if sometimes too lewd—sense of humor, and as a superhero, Storm has a lot of anecdotes that Steve can definitely identify with. Storm even has some experience with an SA, one of the Super Averages, like Nick.

"There's this girl," Storm says, "and she comes running up to me and she has this sketch of me in her hand, down to the goatee, man. Pretty good. No Monet, but the sketch looked fine and I _am_ fine, so it's pretty good art. And she starts yapping on about destiny, and then about me leaving the chicken out of the fridge, and that's when I get that she thinks I'm someone else. So I thought maybe she was talking about you."

"Me?" Steve blinks. "What?"

"You mean no one's ever told you that we could be very good—looking twins?" Storm leans back in his chair. "Huh. I get it _all the time._ Sue—my sister, you might not have seen her all that much, she likes to be invisible—anyway, she thinks it's disturbing how similar we look. And just think—there's another one of us out there on the streets of New York."

"I've met three," Steve says, without really thinking about it.

"Don't you think that's a bit weird?" Storm shrugs. "Anyway, then this other dude comes round the corner and _damn,_ you'd have thought we were twins, and so I thought he was you. So I propositioned him, same as I would do to you, because dude, it's practically masturbation."

Steve thinks concurrently about the image of it, and then all his other recent masturbatory—related thinking about Nick and Tony, and colors automatically.

"It's okay," Storm says, "Your agent Darcy called and told me you were a little bit frigid—"

Steve grits his teeth. Darcy is _so dead._

"—and anyway, this guy starts yelling at the girl, telling her to stop talking to strangers. And she told him to chillax, the Avengers had pretty much saved them," Storm says, gesturing with his chopsticks.

"Was the girl called Cassie?"

"Cassie, Jassie," Storm frowns, "right, yeah, Cassie. That's it. You know her?"

Steve shakes his head. "I know the guy. Nick."

"Yeah," Storm says, "he's a Mover. Knocked me into the wall thinking I was gonna hurt the girl—Cassie."

Steve feels a little numb. "He's a good guy."

"I nearly set him on fire," Storm says, with a shrug. "How do you know him?"

Steve looks down at his teppanyaki, and then shrugs back, "He's dating Tony Stark at the moment."

Storm barks out laughing the nearest tables turn to look at them. And then most of them take out their camera phones subtly when they realize who their dinner guests are. "Seriously? Tony Stark _dating?_ I didn't think he knew the word."

Steve shrugs.

"Sorry, my brain finds it hard to kick in until it's had its evening coffee," Storm says.

"Believe me, I know that feeling," Steve says, thinking of his morning juice.

Storm smiles, but that smile fades into something vaguely serious. "That's gotta be weird. Stark's your best friend, right? Isn't it weird he's fucking someone with our face?" Storm thinks about his own question. "I mean, he's got taste."

"We don't look that identical," Steve says.

So of course, when the waitress comes over to take their dessert orders and asks if "Storm's twin brother" would like the same, it's about an hour until Storm stops laughing.

* * *

When the "date" finishes, Storm escorts Steve home all the way to the front door. Steve unlocks it, and pauses in the open doorway.

"You can come in if you want," Steve says. "It'd just be for coffee," he adds, feeling a little shy. Like Storm might misinterpret him. That was the good thing about the 1940s—coffee was just coffee, not an invitation to the bedroom.

Storm smiles, and shakes his head. He looks over Steve's shoulder, and his face changes a little into something speculative. A mischievous smirk tugs at the side of Storm's mouth and that's all the warning Steve gets before Storm dives in, brushing Steve's lips with a chaste kiss. He pulls back, smiles, and his hands linger at Steve's collar, straightening him. "I had a fun night, Captain. Let's _definitely_ do that again," Storm says, a little louder.

"Sure," Steve says. Storm finger guns Steve, which is just a little odd, and then, smiling to himself, Steve enters the house fully, shutting the door behind him.

He makes it a few paces into the hall before he realizes Tony's sat on the main stairs. Even though it's midnight. He's nursing a drink and he looks a little haggard.

Steve doesn't even have to think—he instantly heads over to sit next to him.

"Have a good time?" Tony asks. He's not slurring his words, so he's not drunk.

Steve shrugs. "It was okay. How about you? You don't look so hot."

"One night with Storm and my looks are already paling in comparison," Tony says, pushing both of his hands into his arc reactor, his drink sloshing a little.

"So," Steve says, "it's after midnight, you're not otherwise occupied with company, you're not in your lab inventing, so you're thinking. Spill it."

Tony looks at him sideways, huffs in a distracted way, and shrugs, his gaze falling forward. "Thinking of doing something stupid, I guess."

"I meant tell me what's _different_ that you're thinking. Not the day to day general stuff," Steve says.

"Captain Comedian," Tony says. He stretches his legs and Steve steadfastly doesn't look, no he doesn't. "I mean, something extra spectacularly stupid."

"Okay," Steve says, drawing out the last syllable. "Will it hurt anyone?"

Tony shrugs. "Define hurt?"

"Civilian casualty count," Steve says, low and hard—this is the point in the conversation where there will _be no wriggle movement._

"None," Tony says.

"Will it make you happy?" Steve asks, because that's the most important thing in the world to him right at the moment.

Tony's eyes go a little unfocussed, but he makes this weird half—laugh sort of sound, and he nods. "Yeah, I think it will." He turns then, to face Steve, and Steve's acutely, painfully aware of how close they are then. "It's ridiculous though. Completely crazy."

"Crazier than coming out on Ellen while holding a baby pig?" Steve questions.

Tony grins. "Yeah, that was a humdinger, Cap. Can't do anything by halves, can you?"

Steve, because he's an idiotic idiot who is an idiot, shrugs, any hint of mirth falling from his face, when he says, "You'd be surprised."

Tony's grin fades too, and he nods, super serious. "I suppose I might."

Their gazes lock. Steve's almost frozen. They've had moments like this regularly over the last five years. Too many to count. They've never felt this personal or this claustrophobic, all at once.

"I think," Steve says, past the lump in his throat, "that you should go for it. Life's too short for regrets." He thinks briefly of Sharon, and wonders if he really would cut it off shorter if he'd known how painful it would go. He thinks now, maybe not. That maybe the pain's been worth it, for the happier memories he got too. "I think you should listen to your arc reactor at all times," Steve adds, because even the slightest _mention_ of Tony having a heart makes him drop whatever the subject is like a rock. "Unless it's telling you in Victor Von Doom's voice to make a lot of bad robots, in which case, tune out. Now. Yesterday."

Tony smiles at Steve then, and it's almost such a sad smile that Steve's heart clenches a little in worry, and that's not a new feeling, so just how _long_ has he been in love with Tony? That's not a question he wants an answer to. "I knew you'd know the right thing to say," Tony says. "You always do."

"Glad I could help?" Steve tries.

Tony nods, and pushes his free hand to the ground to lever himself up, and for a moment, just for the smallest of moments, their faces are close. Steve swallows, even as their eyes meet, and has the craziest feeling that maybe the crazy thing Tony is talking about is _him._

Except then Tony's eyes slide away, and Steve looks down, furiously hating himself again, because it's completely ridiculous and it's corroding his friendship with Tony, one thought at a time, and he doesn't want to lose Tony.

Tony wishes him good night, smiling at him fondly before jogging away, and Steve nods at him. Strong. Like he's the best friend in the world, and not a big smiling fake.

Steve stays and sits on the stairs for a long time, unable to shake away the oddest feeling: that maybe he's already lost him.

* * *

And that turns out to be a feeling that stays with Steve, low in his belly, disturbing him from his sleep. He doesn't sleep much at all. He stumbles down to breakfast in the morning like even more of a zombie than normal. Grabs one of the bottles of Clint's guilty juice (and realizes how wrong that sounds _after_ he's drunk the juice, of course.)

It's like any normal breakfast. Or it should be. Clint's up in the corner. Bruce poking at his oatmeal. Natasha eating her tomato-slathered eggs. Tony and his multiple-night-stand coming in and snuggling more than anyone is comfortable with.

Except it's not any normal breakfast.

Before Steve can even finish his juice, Tony stands up. Clears his throat. "I have an announcement I wanted my nearest and dearest here for—but I guess you'll all have to do."

They all still, automatically. Steve lowers his glass. The whole room feels tense. Heavy.

Tony looks down at Nick, and then at the Avengers gathered around the table, and then looks up at Clint until Clint slithers down. Sensing the heavy mood, Clint comes and sits next to Steve. Steve almost jerks in surprise when a hand touches his—it's Clint's. Clint's holding his hand. _For support,_ Steve thinks numbly, and his eyes fly to Clint's, a horrible feeling already climbing down Steve's throat. Clint shakes his head minutely, an _I'm sorry_ gesture clear on his face, his eyes dark, the corners of his mouth downturned. Steve frowns. Clint jerks his head towards Tony, who's waiting for their full attention.

"Nick and I," Tony says, and Steve nearly swallows his tongue when he adds, "are getting married."

* * *

IHOP is one of the best things about having woken up in a strange, albeit strangely the same future. It's a ginormous, pancakey tick in the pro column for the 21st Century for sure.

At first, Steve spent a few bewildering days thinking Clint was just telling him how much he liked to hop. Clint _did_ seem to hop sometimes, in places where there was nowhere to sit up high. But even the first two trips to IHOP didn't make Steve realize the P stood for _pancakes._

Even though there was practically nothing but pancakes on the menu. Steve just thought maybe Tony had called ahead and told them to put out only pancakes or something those first two times. In Steve's defense, Tony does do that sort of thing.

Now he knows he feels really pretty silly. Of _course_ the P stands for Pancakes. What else would it stand for?

There's an IHOP just stumbling distance from the mansion. It's very dangerous for them to be so close to the Avengers Mansion and thus be in higher risk than the rest of the city for damage. The income they get _from_ the Avengers must be enough to compensate for the sky—high insurance.

The waitresses here like Steve—if he remembers to come in _after_ his juice—and because he had drunk it before Tony dropped his bombshell, the waitresses are delighted and flock around him, asking for autographs on napkins and giving Steve way more pancakes than he asks for. Today is not the first day he's wondered whether he could marry _all_ of the waitresses, all at once.

They're not used to him coming in at lunchtime, so they've been extra nice—making his pancakes into weird shapes. Or maybe it's just super obvious how much Steve needs cheering up.

The problem with pancakes is that Steve gets a little bit... tunnel-vision around them. That's the whole reason he even came here when he was finally able to comfortably extract himself from the congratulatory breakfast. Pancakes so focus him that he doesn't notice Tony coming in and sitting in the chair opposite him until Tony says, "Having fun there, soldier?"

"I'm in a house of _pancakes,_ " Steve says, with authority. Like it _didn't_ take him an embarrassing amount of time to figure it out. He gestures at his plate with his fork. "The waitresses even built me a house _out of pancakes._ "

"Here for the pancake architecture. Guess I can't beat that."

Steve shuffles uncomfortably, because the way Tony's looking, over the edge of his sunglasses, is way too perceptive. "You know," he says, trying to change the subject, "if you built me a _giant_ house of pancakes around this IHOP—"

"It's _always_ too early for Inception jokes," Tony tells him, sternly. "What are you going to tell me next? You came here for the juice?"

"I—" Steve lifts his chin defiantly. "I did, actually."

"Because you've got such a big glass of it right in front of you," Tony says.

"I do?" Steve squints. "Where?" Tony's smirk is so wide it's possibly nuclear. "Oh, haha. Funny."

"You are Captain of the Bad Morning Brigade, I'll give you that." Tony leans forward and snags the pancake chimney from Steve's house of pancakes. "Pancakeception, that's not even funny."

"It's a little bit funny."

"Stop derailing me," Tony says. "Look, I get it. You don't approve of Nick."

"I—" Steve can't help the exhale of noise. He's annoyed. He can't help it. He never can really hold back his annoyance when he's talking with Tony. "It's not up to me to approve or not."

"I know," Tony says. "Doesn't mean I can't _want_ you to approve." He sighs. "I told you last night I was thinking of doing something stupid."

Steve shrugs. "Guess I thought you were thinking of trying to turn the Hulk pink."

Tony squints, moves his head from side to side. "I was thinking that too." Tony taps the table, and shrugs back at Steve. "I thought you might approve. I've never settled down before. It might be good for me."

Steve makes a noncommittal sound.

"I know you don't approve," Tony says, a little rushed. "You couldn't make it more clear—"

"I don't," Steve says.

Tony bites his lower lip. Steve tries not to track the movement like a giant pervert. "So where do we go from here? I can't. I won't bring someone around you're not 100% happy with, I—"

"I meant I don't _not_ approve," Steve says, squinting.

Tony seems to relax.

"You're happy?" Steve says, forcing the most important question out again.

Tony nods, and although he's not smiling, he sounds genuine when he says, "I am."

"Then I'm happy," Steve says, because sometimes it's that simple.

"Then why," Tony starts, and Steve's hand clenches around his fork, because Tony's obtuse but his expression is clear. He's going to ask. _Then why are you acting so weird. Why are you acting like you don't approve._ Steve feels like he's going to be sick.

And then his phone calls. His default ringtone. Which means Tony hasn't been messing with his actual cellphone. Steve fishes it out of his pocket, flickers an apologetic look at Tony, and then hits connect.

"It's Johnny," Steve says, before turning a little in his seat self—consciously. "Hey."

" _Clint Barton called me,_ " Storm says, sounding genuinely concerned. " _I know you can't get shitfaced, but do you wanna try? I can come get you._ "

Steve swallows uncomfortably, embarrassed that Clint's done it and embarrassed that he needs it so much. "I'd like that. I'm at the IHOP round the corner?"

" _I'll pick you up in five minutes._ "

"Thanks," Steve says, almost a whisper.

When he disconnects and turns back to Tony, the moment's lost. Tony looks a little lost in thought.

"Well," Tony says, "you're happy I'm happy, we still have chips so I'm throwing another party."

"An engagement party," Steve says, trying the words out in his mouth, seeing how they make him feel.

Like total shit, for the record.

"Bring Storm along," Tony says, and gets to his feet. He looks down at Steve, unsmiling. "If you're not there, I'll think something's wrong. And as you seem to be going around the houses to maintain that illusion—"

Steve stares at him, his stomach churning, but Tony turns and stalks out before Steve can say anything.

* * *

Johnny Storm is a gentleman, beneath all the blustering and posturing, and he's also a really good listener—when he's not in public. Storm takes him back to his place. A back-up apartment, Storm calls it, for when he needs somewhere to hook-up.

But he doesn't proposition Steve—just makes him shitty instant coffee and _listens._

Steve doesn't tell him everything—that's for his friendship with Tony, and he feels like he's already betraying Tony enough, thank you very much.

"So..." Storm says, "what are you going to do?"

Steve shrugs.

"You want to hear what I think? 'cause I'm a douchebag, pretty consistently, ask anyone. You won't like what I say," Storm warns.

Steve looks at him. "I can't hate you any more than I hate myself right now."

"Okay, but I warned you." Storm leans forwards in his chair. "You're not in love with Stark."

"That," Steve says, "sure would make things easier."

"You've been best friends with this guy for five years. He's displaying a huge change in behavior. A slightly skeevy change on the surface, what with this Nick being a clone of us, but we're hot. It's not _strange_ for something like this to happen, is what I'm saying. Tony's getting older. You can't be a playboy forever. Even me, I know my time's coming up. 'swhy I'm increasing my social currency with you."

"So you're saying I'm just—scared of change? And it's easier to think that I'm in love with him rather than I'm just scared of things changing?" Steve says, mulling it over. It makes sense, apart from how involved his heart seems to be in the idea of Tony and Nick getting _married._

"Pretty much that," Storm says. "You've never been anything but straight in Stark's head. You've never been available. And suddenly, the moment Tony's not available, you've magically realized that he's stunning and wonderful and all you've ever wanted? Does that not seem suss to you?"

"I guess."

"No, you know. You _know_ how you feel. And it's just fear. It's just fear you're losing your best friend. And it sucks, but. _That's_ the source of all your feelings." Storm shrugs. "Just tell him outright. He'll call you a giant girl, but you're kind of being a bit of one at the moment."

"You're a misogynist," Steve tells him, "and I do hate all you say." He swallows as Storm smirks. "But you're also right."

Storm just smirks even more widely.

* * *

Steve's definitely a big fan of doing this before he can fully think them through, and the walk back to the mansion is much too long for his comfort. It takes him an extra three minutes to find Tony. Say anything, but they're still best friends.

For how much longer, Steve doesn't know.

Steve presses the buzzer and waits for Tony to let him in. Tony being Tony, and peeved at Steve dodging his questions at the IHOP, sees him but lets him wait for five minutes under the pretence of being busy with a fuse.

Steve's no electrical expert, despite his extra study on the subject after learning a lot of his Avengers' work would involve knowing what a relay actually did—and why _did_ so many supervillains like robots so much, but even he knows it doesn't take five minutes to change a fuse.

Tony buzzes him through eventually, looking a little dishevelled.

"Where's Nick?" Steve asks politely.

Tony waves a hand. "We're not 24/7 joined at the hip. Although, I might enjoy that." Tony smirks.

Steve sticks his hands in his pockets and shuffles a little. "I just wanted to say sorry."

"Right," Tony says, somewhat briskly. "Sorry for what."

Steve huffs, looks away, and stares at the equipment lying out in Tony's lab. All of it looks like jigsaw pieces to him. Like maybe one day he will be able to pick it all up and make it all form a picture. That's how Tony's explained how engineering works in his brains. Pieces and then suddenly, everything fits.

"I took longer to process your announcement than I should have," Steve says, slowly and firmly. "I was just freaking out because you're my best friend. And I was scared I was gonna lose you." Steve shrugs, uncomfortably. "That's it. You can call me a girl, but Pepper bequeathed me a long list of polysyllabic things to say to you if you do."

Tony stares at Steve for a second, and makes a sucking sound with his mouth, and then shrugs awkwardly. "Guess that sounds like the sort of thing I would have done had our positions been reversed," he says, eventually. "With a lot more panache. And probably some flipped tables."

Steve nods. "So... we're good?"

Tony toys with something on the nearest metal table, moves as if to nod, and then shakes his head. "No," he says, "no we're not."

Steve's stomach plummets, and he swallows painfully as Tony moves out from behind the table and moves over to him. He tense for the punch that should be coming, if someone's said something, if someone's let Tony know what he feels. What Steve _knows_ he feels, even though Storm's also right about the fear of things changing. That fear just makes everything emphasized, highlighted, _worse_. "Then what do I need to do?" Steve says, eventually.

"I'm just—We're just—" Tony steps right up close to Steve, his eyes scanning Steve's face. "I know your face, Steve. I know when you're happily in love with someone. Creepily I know what you look like when you're happily having _sex_ with someone. And you're not happy with Johnny Storm. You're not _with_ Johnny Storm."

"No," Steve says, startled into the truth.

Tony's eyes still move, left to right and back again, lightning quick. Like Steve's a book. Like he can scan Steve's face into his memory like a computer. "You've been upset since even before Nick," Tony says, heavily. "And you haven't told me why. So I don't think our friendship's on the solid ground you fear that it's leaving. I think it's already gone."

Steve flinches. He wants to run. He wants to move. He wants to stay right here, frozen like this forever. Steve is upset, and he lets it fall into him now. This isn't something he even wants to hide from Tony. "How can you _say_ that?"

Tony shrugs. "I'm a truth-teller."

"Right," Steve snaps out, the disbelief clear. "That's you. One hundred per cent transparent."

"Ah, see, I was right." Tony rocks back on his heels. "Ha. You're mad at me."

"I am _not,_ " Steve snaps.

"Yeah, you are." There's too much smugness in Tony's voice. It burns Steve's stomach.

"I think you're insane," Steve says.

"Along with the rest of the world," Tony says. "Seriously, I just wanna know what's got your panties in a bunch. If it's nothing, I'll man-up, I'm probably just foisting my own neuroses on you again, but—I think I'm right. I think you have a problem. And if you can't tell me?" Tony shrugs, and backs off, casually walking over to his table again. "Well, I guess this wasn't a real friendship to even lose."

"How can you even—" Steve starts forward. Tony turns, a hurt expression on his face, one eyebrow quirked in a clear _do I even have to say it again_ way. Steve shakes his head, and he can't look at Tony when he says, "Fine, _fine._ And we've all been bugged by it. And if you think me being weirded out started like, a week ago. You're right. That's when I noticed. But the others have noticed that you've been doing it all month, Tony. And they think it's strange too."

Tony freezes, like all of a sudden he's brittle, completely breakable. There's no emotion in his voice when he says, "What. What's weird."

"You haven't even noticed, have you?" Steve throws his hands up in the air. It's melodramatic, but if any moment calls for drama, it's this moment, right here. "Are you that blind? Or just in denial?"

"I don't even—" Tony starts, moving back towards Steve but then freezing maybe a metre away.

"Yeah, you do," Steve says, moving in, breathing heavily, his eyes locked on Tony like not even a hurricane could dislodge it. "You know exactly what you've been doing for the last month, night after night, before and up to and including Nick."

"I—"

"Every single one of them, Tony." Steve's not shouting, but his body shudders like he's a breath away from it. He's a tense coil of emotions that's been released in one go, not kindly but roughly, all over the place. "Every single _one of them_ has looked like me, or has even had my face. Lucas, Ryan, _Nick—_ they all look _exactly like me._ How's that supposed to make me feel? What do you _expect_ me to do when you do that?"

"I admit there's been a little bit of a trend, maybe a tiny bit of facial similarity—" Tony starts, babbling, his gaze dropping to the floor like he's searching amongst the fragments of robot arms for an answer. He does raise his gaze after a moment, and he looks wild, dislodged, panicked. "Every single one?"

Steve shrugs, some of his anger dissipating at Tony's lost expression. Now he just feels worn out, like he's fought some major supervillain with no break. "Here and there," Steve says, in a small, unsure voice.

Tony makes a little bit of a strangled sound, but he doesn't look away from Steve. "So," Tony says, eventually, "you've been a tiny bit weirded out, and for a very genuine reason, and I've been making it repeatedly worse, and—" Tony's expression pinches with a little shade of _Eureka_. "And you've only told me about it now. You've been festering." Tony fixes Steve with a speculative look. "You've been _festering._ "

Steve stares back, horrified. He doesn't know what Tony is implicating with that, but if it's the truth, well, he's probably about to get decked.

Tony steps back into Steve's personal space, looking tentative and curious and strangely, slowly more confident with each small step. "Steve," Tony says, in an odd tone, like he's winded, "all this time, could I have had you?"

The question's odd, out of nowhere. Steve's eyes fly to Tony's, and he's just thinking there's no way Tony's meaning what he _might_ be meaning when Tony laughs, and Steve's never heard him laugh so delightedly, and then he doesn't have any more time to think, because Tony takes Steve's face in his hands and kisses him.

Steve's brain shuts down for a second or for a minute, he's not entirely sure. And then because it's Tony under his mouth, under his traitorous hands which lift up to Tony's shoulders, which curl against Tony like they were made to fit there, Steve kisses back and it's like drowning. Tony kisses like he talks, possessive, slightly out of control, and he never stops making anything a fight—suddenly the space between them is territory that both of them want to win. And when Steve pushes forwards for a third time, Tony surrenders.

Steve's momentum carries them into the nearest table. Tony flails, pushing a lump of machinery to the ground, and he doesn't disconnect from Steve to laugh, uninhibited, delighted, before tugging at Steve to follow him down onto the table.

Everything bubbles through Steve's chest, delight and sheer pleasure, and Tony's chest is firm under his hand, Tony pushing up into the gesture, and Tony kissing and kissing and kissing him _back_ , and it's more than Steve's ever wanted, and—

Steve shoves, an extra burst of strength, and staggers back, rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand. He stares in horror. Now that the blood is starting to make its way back to his head, not the other place it was rushing to, Steve can see how wrong this looks.

Random broken machinery scattering the ground. Tony's t—shirt, halfway up his chest, torn fabric showing a dark trail of hair that makes something low in Steve's gut lurch and _dammit._ Steve forces his gaze back up to Tony's kiss—swollen mouth, and then higher, to Tony's widened eyes.

"I can't do this," Steve says, "I can't, you're getting married, I can't—" He runs a hand through his hair. Paces, while Tony collects himself a little. Stares at Tony, feeling a little wild. A lot wild. Completely disconnected. His heart is thumping. When Tony straightens, Steve moves towards him again, like he's being pulled by a magnet, and his mouth finds Tony's again before his brain can kick in.

"Your indecision is delightful," Tony murmurs against his mouth.

"Shut up," Steve says, and mouths along Tony's left cheek like he's wanted to, like he's possibly always wanted to, "shut up."

"You're so—" Tony says, "so—" and takes Steve's mouth again, licking in so soundly that Steve has to let Tony support them both for a moment.

" _No,_ " Steve says again, and steps back, smoothing his clothes down automatically, feeling jittery. "Tony, you're getting married. You're getting _married._ "

The desperation on Tony's face fades a little, and he turns away, rubbing the back of his neck for a while. He turns back to Steve, his face hopeful. "I—"

"You like Nick," Steve says, and steps back. He covers his mouth with a hand, like he can wipe away the kissing. His throat feels dry, too dry. He fixes Tony with a stern, sad, sombre, serious look. "You're getting married to _Nick._ "

"I—" Tony says.

"And I'm not," Steve says, "I'm not going to get in the way of that."

"Wait," Tony says, but Steve shakes his head, stumbles out of the door and flees before he can change his mind and do something he _knows_ he'll regret.

Tony finds him later. It's not like Steve was trying very hard to hide. Tony's much more composed this time, and he sits down next to Steve in the kitchen. As it's closer to lunch time, the place is empty—breakfast is their social time for a reason. The Avengers still like their own time. They're loners, formed into a group only when needed. Space is a requisite for all of them.

"Okay," Tony says, without looking at Steve. "I think we can chalk that up to panic over things changing."

"Agreed," Steve says.

"And we'll not talk about it again," Tony says.

"Agreed."

"Nick's a good man," Tony says, sounding highly guilty. He looks at Steve then. "And he looks like you and I love him."

Steve can't return the gaze, but he nods. He thinks of Cassie's picture of Nick and Tony, and how happy Tony looked in that drawing of the future. "And I'm happy for you, for that. Even—" And Steve pushes through it, because he has to, and the kitchen amplifies the sadness in his tone, returning it to his ears, elegiac and so, so sad. "Even though it's going to make me sad, for a while." He turns to Tony then. "I'll just need a little time. And then—Then you'll be happily married, and we'll be best friends again."

Tony's voice cracks. "How much time?"

Steve shrugs. "We've got that press conference scheduled on Monday. I'll leave then."

"Leave," Tony repeats, dully.

Steve shrugs again. He feels like he'll be shrugging for a long time. "I've got a lot of leave accrued. Might take it. Try and see the world again." He looks sadly at Tony. "I'll come back." He thinks, _I'll always come back to you,_ but doesn't say it.

He thinks he'll break down completely if he has to.

Tony looks away again, shaking his head, looking down. "I'm sorry it's—" He exhales, and he laughs, but there is absolutely no humor in it at all. There's regret, and there's pain, and there's resignation. "I'm just sorry."

Steve swallows, looks at Tony for a long, long time, and smiles wryly. "I don't think I could ever be sorry about you, Tony Stark."

Tony mirrors the wry smile. "That sounds like a challenge to me."

Steve inhales, exhales. Slow. Measured. His heart is breaking, inches at a time, but he can still leave with a little bit of dignity. "I don't think Storm and I will be making your party after all," he says, and Tony doesn't respond.

He gets to his feet and walks slowly out of the kitchen, leaving Tony behind him.

He doesn't look back.

* * *

The press conference goes well, like all Avengers press conferences do. Someone bickers about the public damage. Tony flings back statistics and money at them in equal measure. Everyone concedes, yet again, that a broken lamppost is better than the apocalypse.

Steve announces his planned three months hiatus at the end, like it's an afterthought. Fury couches it as a chance to go on a sabbatical, a chance for Captain America to recharge his batteries. The press have it down as a) a mental breakdown, b) rehab and c) incredibly selfish now all the supervillains are going to attack with him gone even before the Avengers have left the building.

Steve couldn't care less.

Bruce, Clint and Natasha don't even confront Steve about the decision to take an extended vacation, although he should have told them. He just couldn't. Having the discussion with Tony had taken all of his strength. Clint and Natasha even react as if he might not ever come back, but Bruce seems more certain he will.

"You're Captain America," Bruce says, patting Steve on the shoulder awkwardly, "you're resilient."

On Steve's second—to—last morning, Tony doesn't come to breakfast with Nick, and Clint makes Steve pose with a pack of bacon in order to start a new meme—apparently Steve holding the pig on Ellen had turned into a huge internet thing. Steve hadn't known—one lesson he has learned during this whole thing is refraining from clicking on Clint's links.

Steve packs his few meager possessions into a sturdy bag. He leaves some of the things his fans have sent him to show the others he _will_ be coming back, but as he looks around his room even _he_ is starting to think that, maybe—

He plans to leave early in the morning, so he goes to find all the Avengers, one by one, to say goodbye. Clint (who cries), Natasha (who doesn't) and Bruce (who gives him handy advice about wet wipes if Steve goes any further South than Peru.)

And then he steals himself and goes looking for Nick and Tony.

He's finds Tony in his bedroom. Thankfully alone. Tony invites him in, and Steve steps in, feeling a little weird about coming into Tony's private space.

There's no evidence of Nick in here, something which makes Steve feel oddly better. By the time he comes back, Tony and Nick will be married, and that will make it easier for Steve to adjust, rather than to have to see it happen, inch by painful inch.

Tony's room is simpler than Steve would ever have expected—just a door to a walk—in closet, a door to an ensuite bathroom, and a very large bed. There's a bedside table on each side, a giant pile of textbooks on Tony's side and a lamp. There is a low black cabinet which might contain alcohol, and there's a glass of whiskey in Tony's hands.

Tony also looks completely, totally exhausted. Steve stares, and hates, and wonders if it's entirely his fault.

Steve steels himself to do what he came to do. "Where's Nick?" he asks.

Tony looks up at him, already a little tipsy. His eyes have that sheen to them that means Steve's not entirely sure if Tony's able to focus on him. "Gone," Tony says, and Steve's stomach does a little flippy thing that just asserts Steve's confidence that he's doing the right thing. "Just for the moment. We had an argument." Tony waves his alcohol. "Not about you. I told him—I told him how rubbish I was at commitment, and you know what he did?

"What?" Steve says. His heart's already starting up again, thumping against his ribs like it's trying to escape. He tells it off, but it doesn't seem to be listening. Then again, it seems to be that particular organ's prerogative.

"He," Tony says, "gave me a day off."

"Uh," Steve says. "What?"

"He gave me a day off our engagement." Tony puts his drink onto the table teeming with books, and he shakes his head. "Said I had full permission to find someone to fuck, to get it out of my system. He said—He said he'd _understand._ Fuck. I don't even understand _myself_. I get this one night to get it out of my system before we get married."

Steve sinks onto the black alcohol cabinet. One thing he had instantly written off after that manic make—out session in Tony's lab was sex, but this—This could be—Maybe it's not entirely an impossible thing after all. Finding it difficult to form words, Steve manages, "Are you going to—"

"It would be wrong," Tony says, and his voice is stronger, like the alcohol's wearing off. "It would be _wrong_ to. But maybe Nick's right. Maybe just one night of freedom's just what I need. C'mon.Be my wingman? We'll hit up Bliss, you can find another Granny on a hen night to bore to death—"

Tony's busy laughing at his own joke. So much so that he almost misses Steve when he says, low, determined, "No."

Tony lets out a disappointed noise. "No. Fine. I'll go on my own. I don't need a wingman—"

"I mean no." Steve feels oddly bold. He feels like he's speaking the words, but it's someone else's voice coming out. Someone braver. Someone bolder. Someone who maybe deserves Tony, for this one night. "No, you don't have to go anywhere. This is—" He steps forward. Stops at the foot of the bed. Feels an unsure expression tug his face into an unfamiliar shape. He's never let anyone see how much he wants _anything_ , when it wasn't _let me into the army, someone, please_ and even this might be something he wants more than that.

Steve squares his back and steps over to Tony and then, deliberately, sits on the bed next to him. He puts his hand on Tony's, nervously, lightly, like Tony might fly away. "If you only get one shot, I want it to be with me."

Tony swallows, and his voice is tight when he says, "Are you out of your—"

"Don't," Steve says, and he feels giddy with this. He wants this. And he knows Tony wants this too. One last moment, one last chance. Something for them that they never have to share. He feels strong and more confident than he's ever been before, because even if Tony says no, humiliates him, tomorrow he'll be a hundred miles away and the next day, two hundred miles, and so on. He has nothing to lose but _this._ "Don't even pretend you've never thought about it. About _us._ "

Tony opens his mouth like he's going to protest, but then he falls quiet and doesn't.

"This is your wild card," Steve presses on, "make it worthwhile. There's been this... itch between us. For as long as we've known each other. One we've never dared scratch. But this—this might be the only chance we ever get." _C'mon_ , Steve thinks. _Don't leave me hanging here like this_.

"You," Tony says, his mouth slightly parted. He looks like he's going to refuse, like he's going to run away, but then his pupils widen a little, and something in them shuts off, like a door being closed. A decision has been made. Tony straightens. Looks Steve in the eyes almost coolly. Steve feels like Tony could pull him apart, right this instant, and he wouldn't give a damn. "Fine. This. Us. Now."

"Now?" Steve says, and although he wants to sound confident, his heart pounding so much it feels like it might snap through his chest and make a break for freedom, there is a tremor in his tone.

"If you're serious," Tony says, "this is your only chance. If you're messing with me—"

"I'm not messing with you. And I won't regret doing this."

"You won't," Tony says, like he's repeating him, but there's a curl of vulnerability that Steve wants to wipe out.

"I'd regret _not_ doing this more than I could ever regret doing it," Steve blurts, and he reaches out, almost slow-motion, until his hand collides with the thin curl of hair at the nape of Tony's neck. "Let me have this. _Please._ " And he pulls Tony down towards him, slow, inexorable, the action unmistakeable.

Tony makes this sound, this desperate sound that tears from the back of his throat, and he surges forwards. His mouth slots against Steve's like they were made to kiss each other. Steve, turned on so fast he's dizzy with it, moans and ruts against him, and Tony pulls his mouth away from Steve's with a smacking sound. Tony's pupils are blown wide, his lips already kiss-swollen, a ferocious intensity in his eyes. "You really want this, don't you?" Tony's voice had been simple, almost tentative, but now the cockiness that Steve finds a complete turn-on in even the least sexy situations is crawling back in. "You're aching hard for me in _moments._ "

Tony's hand curls against Steve's cloth-covered erection to punctuate his point.

Steve groans, so close to what he's always wanted, and it still feels so far. He forces himself to be crass. This is a one night get-out clause, a bonus. A freak event. He can't afford to be sentimental when there's so little time. "Are we going to talk," he grits out, "or are we going to fuck?"

Tony shakes his head a little, and his wicked smile softens into something almost fond as he says, in a voice so quiet, like maybe he wants to deny it later, "You have no idea how beautiful you are."

Tony's better than beautiful. Tony's perfect and wonderful and Steve's fractious with the thought that he's never going to be able to do everything he wants to with this infuriating, glorious man.

But he can do enough. And that's _everything_ right now. Steve shuffles back a little on the bed, his intent clear.

"You move any further back," Tony says, "and you can't change your mind."

Nothing is steady. Not the bed beneath Steve's body, or the world in his head. But there's one thing Steve knows for sure.

He wants Tony.

That's never going to change.

He can live his life denying it forever, or he can accept it for one night.

For this night.

Steve locks his gaze with Tony's, and slowly, deliberately, pushes himself backwards. He throws a petulant look at Tony, a clear _are you following_ expression, and Tony—well, he does whatever he does when Steve takes the lead.

He follows.

* * *

When they're both finally on the bed, shoes kicked off in a blurred frenzy, Steve doesn't know what he's expecting. His heart's racing so loud he can barely hear himself. It must show because Tony smoothes one hand down the side of his face, absurdly tender.

Tony doesn't make any attempt to talk Steve out of it. Steve made himself perfectly clear before. Steve wants this. One night, one chance, but he has to know. It can't be any worse than silently wanting, wanting.

Steve swallows down his nerves and meets Tony's gaze. He's never seen Tony look so determined and focussed. That the determination and the focus is entirely on _him_ is nearly enough to blow Steve's mind.

But if this is only a once—in—a—lifetime event, Steve's going to remember it.

Tony is a mess of contradictions outside of the bedroom, so Steve isn't surprised that Tony's a mess of contradictions _inside_ the bedroom. He almost pushes Steve down into the bed, but then the way he removes Steve's t—shirt is slow and tender, a kiss for every inch of skin. By the time Steve can help to lift his arms to get the offending shirt off, he thinks he's going mad.

Except then Tony unzips Steve's jeans and just pulls Steve's erection free from his boxers without taking his time, and Steve has about one second to make a strangled sound from the cool air hitting his heated dick before Tony swallows him down.

It would be so easy to lose the rest of the night away in a haze. Steve removes his jeans in a mindless fumble, and Tony fingers Steve open while he blows him, one, two, three fingers, until Steve is writhing, fucking himself on Tony's lube—slickened hand. Steve's making whimpering sounds he should be embarrassed about, but Tony's the one creating them, Tony's the one tugging them from his mouth with every tiny curl of a finger.

Steve cries out when Tony pulls his fingers free, and Tony swallows the sound up in a slow and heavy kiss, one hand slackly around Steve's hard dick, the other between his own legs, rolling down a condom with brisk efficiency. Tony meets Steve's eyes again, and grins, his gaze sweeping across Steve's face predatorily, like he approves of what he sees. Tony mouths at Steve's jaw, almost biting but not committing, and works his way into Steve with maddeningly slow, short thrusts, fucking Steve like they have all week to do this, slowly taking Steve apart with just his cock.

If Steve had known this was what penetration felt like, he might have argued with Neil a little more before they broke up. But it also feels right that Tony is the one taking him here. Spreading him open. Taking everything there is to be taken.

Tony fucks like he talks, which is alternating freakish intensity (grinding himself so deep inside Steve that Steve thinks, _I'll feel him there forever)_ with an almost irreverent touch (blowing raspberries into the curve of Steve's neck while gently pumping Steve's dick with one hand, or licking at Steve's shoulder while rolling his hips loose and leisurely). Steve's body welcomes him like he's always known he would, opening up and clenching like he's never going to let Tony go.

Steve doesn't want to come. He wants this to last as long as possible, the stars and stripes exploding behind his eyeballs as Tony fucks into him with focussed intent. His body betrays his heart and Steve climaxes hard, his fingers clenching into Tony's mattress in fear of bruising Tony too much, streaks of his hot come covering them both. Tony grins, apparently pleased, and fucks into Steve three, four more times before coming himself, teeth set into his lower lip, the most incredible expression on his face.

When Tony pulls free, discarding the condom in a practised, easy swoop, Steve can't help the trembling that sweeps his body. Tony's arms are around him almost instantly, and Steve presses his face into Tony's chest while Tony makes _ssshhing_ sounds, and he's cradling Steve's head like Tony thinks he's something precious.

"C'mon," Tony says, after a long moment, "I've been granted a whole night, not just wham, bam, thank you, cap'n."

Steve laughs into Tony's skin because he can't help himself, he never can, but Tony's serious—and why wouldn't he be serious about sex, because Tony's takes two things in life seriously—his inventions and whoever is in his bed, for the period they are in his bed, and when Steve doesn't raise his face, Tony seems determined to show him.

He kisses Steve, and it's a mirror to how Steve's feeling, like Tony's been inside him where no one ever has before, so deep inside him that Steve might never get him out.

Steve gets into the kissing, and dizzy and emboldened he's the one that reaches out this time, laying Tony down into the pillows. There's a tentative moment when Steve casts around for the condoms, and Tony smirks, and they both end up laughing, and yes, _this_ is what Steve thought it would be like. Tony tears the condom wrapper with his teeth, and Steve dutifully pinches the tip and rolls it on Tony's length slowly, to let him know how much of a tease he's been, and Tony makes a whimpering sound he quickly swallows back, too late for Steve not to have heard it.

Tony stares wordlessly at Steve, like he's almost daring Steve to call him on it, but Steve—feeling brave—swoops in and takes Tony's mouth with his own. Kissing is something Steve knows he's good at, and Tony tries to move his face away, and Steve chases him, licking Tony's teeth by accident and still thinking it incredibly, ridiculously hot.

Steve wants to take Tony by surprise, and while he's kissing him, he straddles Tony's thighs and sinks himself down onto Tony's newly re—interested erection, managing half the length in one movement. Tony cries out wordlessly into Steve's mouth, but Steve doesn't let Tony's mouth go, kissing and kissing as he forces himself down, nestling Tony's cock in his body as far as Steve can fit it.

And either sex is easy, or it's _Tony_ and that _makes_ it easy, because Steve moves in a way that's pleasurable to him, rolling his hips slowly and then just fucking himself on Tony's cock, sparking a place deep inside him that Tony had grazed with his erection the first time around, hitting it repeatedly. The world whitewashes behind Steve's eyeballs, but he doesn't close his eyes. He wants to remember this all. Maybe it's strange and creepy to stare at your partner during sex, Steve wouldn't really know—but Tony's staring straight back, an amused look in his eyes that Steve can see despite the dimness of the room, like he's proud of Steve learning the secret of a lifetime.

Steve draws himself up nearly to the point of letting Tony's dick slip from his body—and then slams back down, fucking himself on Tony's length. There's a small rolling movement that makes Tony cry out, so Steve repeats it. He doesn't know if he can feel Tony twitching inside him, but he fancies that he can. So entranced by the feeling, of being so joined to Tony this way, the apex of their hips making the most perfect angle in the world—has any angle ever _been_ so perfect—that Steve doesn't remember that he can touch his own erection.

It's when Tony reaches up, adding his own hand into the equation, that something breaks, low in Steve's gut, something he didn't even know existed to be broken.

"Fuck," Steve says, the filthy words thick and warm and strong, and it's not like he hasn't used these words a million times—soldiers, they're almost as bad as sailors when it comes to cursing at the end of the day—but he's never thought of using them like this, and they just spill out, over and over, like his voice is climaxing with his body, "fuck, Tony, you have no idea, do you. You have no clue how beautiful you look, with your hand on my cock, pulling me just right. I can feel you—Ahh, I can feel you right inside me. Do you like it? Huh? Do you like that you're somewhere no one else has ever been?"

"Fuck," Tony says, like he's stunned. His eyes are wide, and locked on Steve like he's the centre of the universe, " _Steve._ "

And Steve laughs with it, because who knew, who knew Tony—the most verbose man in the _universe_ —is speechless in bed, and stoic Steve Rogers, words—only—when—necessary Captain America, _his_ rhythm is words and meaning and fucking _filthiness._ He feels strong and powerful. He can feel Tony shuddering with his words, shattering apart at the seams, just from _him_. In this moment he can do _anything._ "Laid back and in pieces beneath me," Steve pants, rocking, gripping Tony inside him tight, yes, _this_ is fucking. Steve's had sex, but he's never had this before. It's like flying and light and exploding and touching the purest, most concentrated part of his personality. "Fuck. Tony Stark, reduced to a whimpering, wordless thing because of me."

"You," Tony stutters, his other hand clutching uselessly at Steve's thigh, his arc reactor glowing more brightly, although that might be Steve's imagination, "you're _impossible._ "

"I feel that," Steve says, pleasure fizzing up his spine, tightening between his legs, coloring his own body like he's standing on the edge, full of fire and lightning. Tony, below him, surrendering to him even though Steve's the one being penetrated, it's like a paradox with a thousand new solutions. "I'm going to feel you for weeks. You're going to move on, and I'm going to be okay, and I'm going to smile and be polite but every time I'll move, I'll feel you. And you'll remember. You'll remember."

Tony cries out as Steve impossibly, relentlessly drives his hips faster. For a moment, Steve thinks Tony whimpers "always", but perhaps it's his heart, a cacophony of a drumbeat, or perhaps it's just wishful thinking. Tony keeps making the incoherent sound, fingertips scrabbling for purchase against Steve's erection and thigh, and it takes Steve a few dizzy moments to realize Tony's climaxed again, flooding the condom with his come. Steve eases off Tony, slow and careful, and removes the condom with a teasing flick at the head of his cock, making Tony make a hissing sound in the back of his throat.

Smiling lazily, Steve throws the condom into the bin, and climbs off Tony, Tony's dick curling limply against his reddened thighs.

"Wait." Tony grips onto Steve's wrist as Steve tries to move. "Don't go."

Steve curls his mouth a little. Tony does sleep with his one-night stands after the sex. Steve's not entirely sure if he wants to sink into that part of the routine, because the sex has blown his mind, but maybe it's the sleeping next to Tony part that might be hardest to give up. But Steve can't say no to Tony. He's just not wired that way. So Steve shoves all the voices in his brain which have chorused up again to tell him how much of a bad idea this is right to the back, and he smiles at Tony, seductive, joking, "You going to finish me off, Mr. Stark?"

Tony makes a little bit of a strangled sound. "I had no idea," Tony says, sounding oddly stilted, dazed, and maybe a little fond, "just how brilliant you would be."

"I'm a natural at most things," Steve says, because it's true. Back before the serum that hadn't included physical things, but now, Steve doesn't know that there's much that will ever be difficult.

Apart from maybe seeing Tony every day, but Steve already knows that's going to be hard. He's prepared, if already maybe grieving a little, but he was right: knowing this is better than not. It's easier to get over something when he knows _exactly_ what he's getting over.

"Yeah?" Tony says, like it's a challenge. "Let's test that theory. Shove over."

Steve frowns, but does what he's told—he's a soldier at heart, of course—and stretches out on his side. His erection is still throbbing—Steve couldn't let himself come with Tony inside him, because he wanted to feel just that, just the pleasure of that—and Steve can't see Tony now. He can feel Tony's breath, warm and even, on the curve of his shoulder. He doesn't know what Tony's going to do. He's thinking maybe Tony's going to fuck him again—Steve's loose and open enough for it—and then Tony just wraps his hand around Steve's cock.

And Tony just moves his hand. Gentle. Up and down. Thumbing the head.

"You like?" Tony says, in a quiet voice, like people might possibly overhear them. Steve closes his eyes, because it's better than staring into the darkened room, and he can focus on how Tony's making him feel. There's a tickle and warmth wetness at his shoulder—Tony kissing him. Light, like Steve's something special. Like he's trying to make this night the best memory to take away as he possibly can. "I can't hear you."

"Yes," Steve manages. He can feel the smile Tony presses into the curve between his shoulder and neck.

"You're so beautiful," Tony says. His voice sounds strained, like he doesn't even know he's saying it. "I wonder if I can take you apart, just like this. Like a jigsaw."

Oh, so _this_ is where Tony finds his words. Steve shudders in Tony's grasp, wanting Tony to speed up, to push down more, but Tony keeps his hand moving the same speed, keeping the pressure just on the level of _not quite enough_.

"I could keep you here for hours," Tony says idly, like the concept has only just occurred to him. "Keep you on the edge. Deny you the orgasm. But I'm already addicted to the way you come. Earnest, so very earnest and _all_ of you, and you look at me, and I burn all the way up."

Steve bites his bottom lip. He won't say anything. There's nothing to say.

"So you're quiet now," Tony says. "Maybe I can make you scream."

Steve swallows down the noise he wants to make as Tony tightens his hand, just a little. He tries to twist his hips into Tony's hand, but Tony leans his body against Steve's, stopping him from moving.

"It's not going to be that easy," Tony says. Then he adds, quieter, like he's trying to convince himself Steve won't hear it, "I'll make sure you remember this."

And the thing is, he's right, Tony's absolutely right. There's no way Steve will forget this night. It's already imprinted into his brain, tattooed behind his eyelids. It's going to be a long time—and many nights and aborted masturbatory sessions, because how can Steve go easily back to just his own hand after _this_ —for this night to even fade just a little.

Steve wants to hate it, but Tony's hand is tight and warm, and Steve can't help the whimper that drags from his throat. And as soon as Tony hears that whimper, he speeds up. The hand on Steve's dick is brutal as Tony pumps him, but Tony's other hand is splayed wide on Steve's back, like he's soothing him at the same time as he's ripping him apart. Steve's almost sobbing with how sensitized and raw he feels, and he ends up biting at the skin of his own arm as Tony drags him inexorably towards climax. Steve comes when Tony buries his face into the base of Steve's neck, breath hot and fast and just as ragged as Steve's—when it comes down to it, they're both just as affected by this night. Steve comes down, slowly, gasping, settling back into Tony's body way too easily.

When Steve's heart rate drops back to normal, and Tony's tried and failed to ruin the moment by rubbing his come—streaked hand over his sheets, there's a long moment where Steve thinks he's strong enough. He can avoid having to wake up in Tony's bed, knowing this is all he wants from life, knowing he can never have it. He can get out of the bed. He can walk back to his own room. He can shower the scent of Tony from his body, and he can sleep in his own bed, and he can pass this all off as a dream.

And Tony destroys that in one moment with a hand curled around Steve's wrist, and one whispered word.

 _“Stay._ "

And Steve, swallowing hard, does.

* * *

The thing is, Steve thinks he maybe hallucinates the next part. Or dreams it.

It doesn't feel real.

He falls asleep, so, so easily with Tony curled around him, and Steve just lets himself pretend, just for now, that this could be more than this. Sleep is almost a joy.

So when he feels a soft, warm kiss on the nape of his neck, Steve doesn't know whether he's awake or dreaming. Maybe it's a dream. Tony trails his hands along Steve's chest, lazily, and Steve stirs only to melt against the body that's behind him. Tony's chest plate is cold. Steve shivers when it connects with his back, and Tony's thumb drops to Steve's hip bone, rubbing it back and forth, a feather—light touch, and Tony might be saying _sshhh_ or he might be breathing or this might still be a dream.

If it's a dream, it's okay for Steve to be pliant and open under the hands that are touching him, the fingers that find him still loose and open and slip in with no effort, spreading him apart just enough for Tony to enter him again. Tony moves slow, barely moving, sparking every nerve Steve has. This is a dream. It's okay for Steve to turn his head in the world's most awkward angle, in order to take Tony's mouth in the laziest kiss in the world, their faces barely moving. It's a dream, so Steve isn't being wanton or needy to push back into every smooth, small stroke. It's a dream, so it's okay for this to feel like the closest connection possible. Like they're making love, not fucking.

The kiss disconnects, and Steve grasps out blindly, gripping the back of Tony's head, pushing Tony's forehead into the side of his face. And when the climax comes, it's not a body-splitting earthquake, but something that opens deep inside him, like the sun crawling up into the sky.

It might not be a dream, because Tony crawls out of the bed. Steve can hear a small _smack_ of what might be the discarded condom hitting the bottom of Tony's metal wire bin. He can hear the creak of a pipe—maybe a tap being turned on. And then the bed dips behind him, and, oh, it might still be a dream—Tony's cleaning them up, gentle and thorough and each stroke is the softest caress. And then Tony's weight settles against him, and his arms come around Steve, and clutch him like he's everything.

Tony whispers something then, something Steve's pretty sure he's not meant to hear, but because his skin is so much more attuned to everything since the serum, he hears it. " _In another world, I would get to keep you.“_

But this world isn't another world. This world is broken. This world has Nick for Tony, and Tony isn't his.

And it is a dream, anyway. Because when Steve wakes up in the morning, Tony is long gone. Tony from the dream would have been there, waiting for him.

And Steve—Steve wouldn't have been able to walk away today.

He needs to walk away.

* * *

Steve packs up his cycle before going into breakfast. It makes him a little late, so he walks in on it being its usual chaos, but that's sort of what he wants. Clint calls him over and instantly shows him his tumblr—Clint masquerades as a sixteen—year old Avengers fangirl called 1dayiwillhavehawkeyesbaby—where he posted Steve holding the bacon. The note, labelled SIX HOURS LATER, and has the original picture of Steve cuddling the piglet above him, has way too many hits for something so ridiculous.

"People think I photoshopped it," Clint says, waving the tablet around, "they keep thinking I shop the pictures I take of you all. I'm a Photoshop _master_ on the Internet."

"One day people'll figure out they're not image manipulations," Steve says, pretty proud of himself for using the right terminology before his juice. Except he has the uncomfortable feeling that, oh, _getting everything he apparently ever wants from life,_ which, horrendously, had been sex with Tony Stark, might have finally woken him up for good.

"Not today, my man," Clint says. He looks at Steve, like he's going to say something, and then he just settles for nodding. _I miss you_ fills the space between both of them regardless.

Steve grabs what might be his last bottle of juice ever from the fridge, settles down, and realizes Tony is there already, steadfastly not meeting his eyes. Steve can see part of a bruise peeking out from his t—shirt collar, and tries his best not to color, because he made that, he made that and he shouldn't feel so _proud_ because Nick might have given Tony a free pass, but Steve shouldn't have pushed Tony so hard to take him up on it.

Bruce makes small talk, giving Steve extra tips on where he should go, and Steve nods and nods, like he's actually planning to go south and see the sights.

The Avengers don't need to know he has other plans.

Steve hugs them all, one by one, even Tony, because if he doesn't the others might know what happened between them, and he's still ashamed of betraying Nick, even if they had permission, and then he gets on his bike and drives off.

And parks his bike in a long—term storage unit that takes cash and doesn't ask too many questions. It's not far from there to Storm's spare apartment. Storm meets him there, actually, which is pretty damn decent.

"I'm sorry about, um, maybe cockblocking you for the next three months," Steve says, in a rush, "but I really do appreciate this."

"I'd be a hypocrite to stop you, man," Storm says. "I've done the denial for several months at a time thing myself." He slaps Steve on the shoulder comfortingly. "I got my cleaner Toleda to stock you up, just leave a shopping list for her on the fridge."

"Thanks," Steve says, awkwardly. "Darcy will get you the money."

"That girl is crazier than a bag of caffeine—addicted turtles," Storm says, shaking his head.

"Uh," Steve says, "that visual is, uh, interesting?"

"I'm a man of gifts," Storm says. "Call me if you need some company, yeah?"

Steve nods.

Storm shuffles, looking out of the windows, and not at Steve. Steve sighs.

"Just spill it," Steve says.

"Just—" Storm says, and then looks at Steve. "You are going to be okay, right? I'm cool with the press finding out at the end that I've been holing up in here like my mistress, but if you kill yourself, man. I need to be able to shift this apartment in the future, and no one would want the apartment where Captain America killed himself."

Steve looks at him, alarmed. "Um, no. That's not the plan." Steve screws his mouth up for a moment, thinking about it. "And if it was, target the supervillains. They love a place with carpets with the scent of dead superhero."

"Same face," Storm says, "and you got the brains." Storm winks, and backs away, heading for the door. "But I got the rampant sex appeal. And the slightly better ass, man."

"Thank you for helping me hide," Steve says, "and also for making me feel so much better about myself."

"All in a day's work," Storm calls, sing-song, and sails out of the door.

Steve swallows, and stares at the closed door, before swivelling on his heel and looking around at the empty apartment.

He doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or cry. Taking that night with Tony, Steve had thought he needed to know. To know entirely what it was he giving up. But now he knows what Nick gets, for every day until the end of their lives—

Steve has to move on. He _has_ to. Tony and he would only have ever gotten one night. If Tony had ever really, honestly thought Steve and he might have, _could_ have had something longer term... Then he'd be the one marrying Tony in a couple of months.

But he's here, and alone, and he has to move on.

Steve exhales through his teeth, slowly, and sinks to the chair. He has to move on, but first—

First he has to grieve.

* * *

It's a lot harder to stay out of the way than Steve initially anticipates.

The first time an attack hits New York, Steve has to literally sit on his hands. He has a phone specifically given to him by Agent Fury in case there's no one else anywhere nearby. Fury—Steve's always called him by his first name, but can't for a little while, and maybe it's that which makes Fury ask no questions and fed—ex him the phone with a promise that it's off the records to all but him and the Council—pretty much promised he wouldn't _ever_ use the phone, and he promised that he wouldn't let Steve's real location end up on the SHIELD servers.

By the fact that none of the Avengers, past or current, have shown up at his door, Steve knows Fury's kept his word.

But seeing the explosions in the distance... Steve's stomach turns uneasily.

Steve goes out occasionally, only at night, covering his face. He only comes near Clint once—on a date at a burger bar—but Clint doesn't turn around and Steve manages to keep his homesick staring down to a minimum. Well. Five minutes. Steve _misses_ them like crazy. He can't even risk phoning them, because Tony's systems would track his real location.

Darcy, on the other hand, manages to send postcards on his behalf from all over the place, mimicking his handwriting flawlessly. She's especially amenable when Steve pays for the full holiday for her. Admittedly social awkward in all possible forms, Darcy thinks his hiding plan is excellent. Steve doesn't know whether to feel affirmed or not that a slightly—crazy astrophysicist thinks his plans are a—okay.

He ignores the news. He catches up on his reading. He draws a little, but all that falls from his pen are curves which remind him of Tony, or Tony's face. His days descend into waking, the most basic of ablutions, (juice), listening to the radio, robust calisthenics, napping, staring out at any sign of supervillain atrocity, cooking for one (on a sad low heat—one day, to remember Clint, Steve nearly sets fire to the pan, but can't make himself do it), reading, jogging around the block for a couple of hours in the dead of night, sleeping, repeating on loop. Storm comes by once a week, and inevitably Storm gets drunk and Steve pretends he's getting better, and the weeks pass blindly.

Steve thinks, oddly, of doing this forever—and then the phone Fury sent him rings.

* * *

The sound, because it's unfamiliar to the drag of Steve's routine, takes him a little while to decipher. At first Steve thinks he might have a headache. Then he understands what it is and he snaps instantly to alert, hurtling for the phone and hitting connect before having to think about it.

"Hello," Steve says.

" _You know I wouldn't ask if I didn't need you,“_ Fury drawls.

"Where are the Avengers?" Steve asks, briskly heading for the cupboard where his suit hangs. He swallows a little at the sight of his shield. He's been trying not to think about it, or how he misses being useful. Misses being able to save people. Because it's still all tied up with the thought that he misses Tony, and that means not enough time has passed at all for him to still be useful to the Avengers.

Fighting on his own, maybe that's something he can do.

Fury pauses uncomfortably. " _Today is Stark's wedding. I can't pull them out in time. You're the closest. Sending you the co-ordinates and pictures now.“_

"I'm on it," Steve says.

He drops the phone and throws off his t-shirt and sweats, pulling the suit on, hating how long it takes him even though it's maybe a minute longer than normal. One minute meant more potential victims. More potential casualties. Steve yanks his headpiece on, puts the shield over his arm and scoops up his phone.

One of his neighbours eyeballs him oddly when he dashes out of the door in full Captain America regalia.

"Um," the woman says, wide-eyed.

"Enemy rampaging around the streets, ma'am," Steve says, "best to say inside if you can."

"Yes, sir," the woman breathes, but Steve's already off and heading for the stairs.

The commotion, according to the phone, is going on only four blocks away. Steve's not at the top of his condition, but he's been looking after his body if not controlling his facial hair. Still, people look at his suit, not the part of his face the mask doesn't cover.

Steve stumbles to a stop when he does see the disturbance. There's a SHIELD jet up high, firing blasts intermittently at it, which explains how Fury could be so specific—but the tiny screen on his phone couldn't give full justice to how _big_ the dragon actually is.

And it's definitely a dragon, exactly like someone might create one who'd read a few fairy tales.

Down to the scaly claws, large leathery wings—oh, and the fire breathing.

Steve runs out into the street, throws his shield, and starts to dodge the fire that instantly turns his way, even though he's hit by one thought:

He's just one person, and one person isn't going to be enough to topple this dragon, even if they are super—powered.

And it turns out, his thought is exactly right.

Steve on his own isn't enough.

* * *

Steve's exhausted only fifteen minutes into the fight. The SHIELD jet tries its best, but even though Steve activates his comms and barks out commands as best as he can, it can't dodge the dragon's tail that catches its propellers and sends it crashing down into the base of a building.

Steve lays down cover so the pilot can escape, and entrusts the pilot with going for back—up. And maybe a tank.

"We've got people ten minutes out," Fury tells him down the comms line, "hold it 'til then."

Steve nods, even though Fury can't see him, and tries to distract the dragon. Except there's not been a proper perimeter clamped down by SHIELD, and Steve's distracted by a big yellow bus full of school children, starting down the road towards them, and he's not the only one—the dragon's interested too.

Steve tries not to swear and, retrieving his shield from the wall he embedded in a few minutes previously, he throws it directly at the dragon's face, aiming to distract and irritate it. It works—the dragon's full attention is on him. Steve ducks behind his shield as the dragon launches a barrelage of fire towards him. The edges of his suit are already charring. The shield heats up and pretty soon Steve won't be able to hold onto it any more.

He needs to stop the dragon, and _stat._ His back—up is probably still five minutes out, meaning Steve has to do it _now._ And he thinks he knows how to do it.

He checks with Fury quickly, and the building the jet crashed into has already been evacuated, in case the jet blew on its own. So hurtling full speed, pushing all of himself into the motion, Steve breaks free from the roar of fire with a shoulder roll. Fire lances across his back, scorching through the suit and probably making crackling of his skin, but Steve grits his teeth. Right now it doesn't _matter._ Right now, he has children to save.

Skidding across vehicles and scrambling over debris, Steve launches himself into the damaged building where the SHIELD jet crashed. Ducking down behind it, he uses his shield like a hammer, cracking open the panel when he knows the fuel is kept. He smashes into it, swapping precision for fury, hoping to open it up enough for this to work. He doesn't know a lot about technology in this century, but he knows just how volatile the fuel is that SHIELD uses.

He knows it's volatile because Tony invented it.

Hopefully it's enough because the dragon's here now, and Steve launches himself over the jet and throws his shield at the dragon's throat. It bounces off at just the right angle for him to catch it, and the dragon—super close—belches fire at Steve. Steve crouches down, using his shield like he's a turtle, and then the whole world explodes around him. He knows he's been successful from the bricks—if the jet _hadn't_ exploded, the building wouldn't have come down, and hopefully, hopefully brought the dragon down too.

At least he'll have waylaid the dragon enough for the help that's coming to protect the bus full of children.

The bricks fall on Steve, and fall, and fall, and Steve has a tiny moment to hope Tony's happy, and then unconsciousness sweeps him away for a while.

* * *

When he wakes, it's to Tony's voice. Like a siren call.

Screaming his name, actually.

"Steve? STEVE. Fuck—Steve's under this, help me get him out—" Tony's yelling, desperately, like the world might have just ended.

Steve frowns and tries to move himself, but he can't. Because he tried to drop a whole building on himself, probably. But if it is the end of the world, Steve should probably be helping.

He feels a roar of something, and then Steve can finally move, and he stirs as much as he can considering there is still quite a number of bricks still on his legs. Steve twists in time to see Tony in his Iron Man suit, mask flipped up, _crying._

"Steve, oh god, you're okay," Tony says, babbling, landing badly in the rubble near Steve and flinging rocks from him haphazardly. "I saw your shield—I thought you were _dead_." Tony's voice is raw, and yeah, he's definitely been sobbing. Steve's gut tightens. Everything _hurts._

Oh yeah, he dropped a building on top of himself.

And a dragon.

"Is the dragon—" Steve croaks out. His throat hurts. The fire from the dragon, probably.

"Is that what that is?" Clint says, landing neatly on some of the rubble. His mask is around his throat, and he looks desperately relieved to see Steve there and breathing.

"Hey, Cap," Natasha says, clambering up to join Clint. "You got the dragon. We turned up moments too late."

Steve coughs, spasming—Tony puts his hand out, and keeps Steve still.

"Easy, big guy, you're hurt pretty bad," Tony says.

Steve's eyes fly to Tony's in panic. "Your wedding—" he starts. "Fury said—"

Tony shrugs, awkwardly. His face looks pinched. "I guess it's just having a little bit of an intermission," he says, somewhat stiffly. "Hey—look at your _face_."

Steve can just about feel his arm, he reaches up to his face as Clint and Natasha quickly move the bricks from his legs. When he pulls his scorched gloves away, there's blood on his fingers. "I hurt my face," Steve says, dumbly.

"Probably gonna scar," Bruce says. "Also: hello." He's wearing just pants and looking a little messed up. "Do you need the Other Guy to get you out?"

"No, we're good," Clint says, freeing Steve's legs. Steve wiggles them—nothing broken. He might cry a little himself. Just in relief. Not because seeing these people—his _family_ —makes him remember what he tried to walk away from.

Never again, he vows himself. Never again. No matter how much it hurts to be around Tony and Nick.

"I," Tony says, "was talking about the facial hair. Does South America not have razors?"

"I didn't go to South America," Steve says, dumbly, as Tony wraps an arm around his waist. Steve cries out when Tony effortlessly lifts him up. Everything's going to hurt for a while. He checks Tony's face for a reaction, but Tony doesn't look too surprised.

"Hey," a voice says awkwardly from one side. Steve turns, and still has to fight the urge to blush, because he's injured, but he's also in the arms of the voice's fiancé. Nick stares at them, looking deeply unhappy. He's wearing a SHIELD standard black uniform, but his hair is neat and there's a track of lipstick on his cheek. Right, Steve remembers. He and Tony were in the middle of getting _married._ The lipstick will be from a female relative. Maybe his future-reading friend Cassie. Wishing him and Tony well for a lifetime of happiness.

"Thanks for the rescue," Steve says, his burned throat an excellent excuse for his ragged voice, "I'm really sorry for interrupting your special day."

"Yeah, you planned that dragon attack real good," Clint says, rolling his eyes.

Nick smiles tightly at Clint, and he shakes his head. "You didn't interrupt anything that—" He swallows, slow and visible, and his eyes are a little wet when he says, "Anything that wasn't always going to be interrupted."

Steve can see Tony's expression quirk in the corner of his eye. He's always hyper aware of anything Tony does.

"What—" Tony starts, but Nick steps forwards, and pushes something into Tony's hands. Nick looks up at Tony, a fond but bittersweet expression on his face.

Steve's stomach lurches as he recognizes the expression. They could be twins. And Steve's seen his own heartbroken expression more than enough over the last couple of months.

"Tony," Nick says, heavily, "before, when we started training, I fell. I didn't hurt myself that much, but you couldn't have known."

Tony frowns, finding it difficult to remember way back then. "Right," Tony says. "Steve made you stumble."

"You walked over to me," Nick says.

Tony's frown doesn't falter. "How—"

"One glimpse of something which might have been Steve, or might have been a flag for all we could see, and you were screaming his name. Hurtling over debris and fires like there was nothing in your way. _Running_ to him." Nick's expression twists. He backs up, just a step. "In your hand, you have a sketch. From a psychic. A sketch I thought was you and me, happy in the future."

"Right," Tony says, sounding entirely bewildered. "You showed it to me." He steps forwards, dragging Steve forward with him as an afterthought, and Steve is—Steve's fine with that, really. He forgot how colorful life is with Tony still in it. He forgot how much his life isn't _real_ without Tony in it at all. He'll take being dragged across rubble half—injured if that's what it takes—this is where he belongs. "It shows you and me. Happy."

Nick shakes his head. "Look at it again, Tony." He looks over at Steve, his expression flint—hard, and for a moment, Steve thinks Nick's going to stab him. "Look after him." He smiles, no humor. "Should have known. The first time we had sex, he called me Steve. I guess I just thought it was a glitch, a remnant of you being best buddies. But I don't think you were just friends. Not really ever."

Steve stares at him numbly as he backs off.

As Tony _lets him go._

He turns to Tony, who's staring down at the piece of paper that Nick handed him. The piece of paper Steve does remember from his coming out party.

Tony and Nick. Happy together. So what is Nick going _on_ about?

Tony swallows, and tilts the paper around, and Steve's eyes burn immediately.

The scruffy hair. The scar on the face. The way they're looking at each other...

The first time Steve saw it, he thought the lines depicting clothing were just a crude depiction of some sort of design. But now he knows what that picture really is, he can see the scorch mark on his shoulder. The scorch mark that's on his shoulder right now.

Steve looks up at Tony, and Tony takes his uninjured cheek in one metal hand, and Steve shudders at how gentle he is with this potentially terribly destructive suit.

"It's us," Tony says, his voice breaking when he says it, and he pulls Steve towards him. In the suit it's all he can do to press his forehead against Steve's, and Steve can feel Tony shaking, and something in Steve collides and he thinks, wildly, dramatically, it's the fragments of his broken heart colliding together. "The picture's of us."

Steve eventually makes himself pull back, but he can't make himself stop smiling, and he can't stop himself from angling up, fitting his mouth to Tony's, carefully and cautiously. He can feel Tony smile against him before kissing him back, much less carefully.

"I guess the wedding's off," Bruce says, from behind them.

"Thank god," Natasha says, "that bridesmaid dress was _killing_ me. I'm a professional assassin, but I could take tips from it for sure."

"You should have said," Clint says, "I would have helped you out of it—owww! I only have two of those, y'know!"

"Maybe," Natasha says, "you might like to keep both of them."

Clint grumbles, and shuts up.

Tony pulls back, and he's grinning fiercely. Steve can feel a similar stretch on his own face. This might be the moment that Nick's psychic saw. But Steve's not thinking about her.

"C'mon," Steve says, "I'm hurt, I need rest, I need juice." He looks at Tony, willing him to realize just how much this means to him. From the way Tony's smiling and smiling, unable to stop, maybe he already knows.

"Guys," Clint says, as they start to pick their way out of the rubble, "maybe we should swing by the wedding and maybe let them know it's cancelled?"

"Sounds like you just volunteered," Tony says. "Thanks, Clint!"

"Man," Clint howls in disgust, but he doesn't sound too mad. "I'm still glad you're back, Cap," Clint adds.

"How about," Steve says, "we swing by whatever fancy-ass reception you cooked up and take the cake. It would be a terrible thing to waste."

"I knew it," Tony says, "you're only after me for my cake!"

"Possibly," Steve says. "And your juice."

"That's what she said," Tony says, brightly.

Steve regrets being so injured. His hands hurt too much to facepalm. Besides, he's ridiculously, completely happy, and that sort of emotion has no space in it for any sort of sadness. Or facepalming.

"Let's go home," Tony says, in a thick voice.

Steve nods, and when the others are a little way, he quietly admits, "That's always been wherever you are."

Tony looks across at him, and Steve could almost burst from how happy he is. "Yeah," Tony says, after a moment. He nods. "Yeah."

And Steve can do nothing but smile back. And if he never stops smiling again, well. Supervillains get creeped out by smiling superheroes. It's a well known fact. It's a win—win situation. Villains get spooked, and Steve—

Steve has everything he's ever wanted.

* * *

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I See You Looking (At Him)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/567941) by [aozu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aozu/pseuds/aozu)




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